The End of Roe

The Supreme Court is not an elective body.  It is not a legislature.  Occasionally, it fails to realize these points.  One reason that the Constitution places all legislative power in the Congress is that the people can unseat Congress every 2 to 6 years.  The people cannot unseat judges.  When Congress enacts a controversial law, the people can reply with an electoral stamp of approval or a house cleaning.  If the courts enact 'rulings' that have the force of law, the people have no recourse.  Yes, the legislature could enact specific laws that effectively overturn the court but that becomes exceedingly difficult if one party or the other likes the ruling.  It would take a supermajority (60) in the Senate and control of both the House and the Presidency to negate the Supreme Court.  Even that won't be enough if the court has found that the Constitution guarantees this or that.

Now that Roe has been overturned, the question of abortion returns to the state legislatures.  If state legislatures enact laws that the state's populace opposes, the house cleanings will commence.  Strange though it may seem, this ruling weakens the Supreme Court.  By negating one of its most obvious encroachments into legislating, it can resume its post of merely interpreting laws that the Congress writes. The court's transformation into a super-legislature is what has caused the hyper-partisan judicial nomination process.  For far too long, Congress has dodged its legislative responsibilities by offloading them to the bureaucracy and the courts, two branches of government that are not subject to the voters.

Next, it would be nice if the court would strike down all bureaucratic regulation-making authority.  All legislative authority is invested in Congress, not the EPA, EEOC, FDA, NIH, et al.  This outsourcing of law-making power is why the federal registry is incomprehensibly large.  Congress could never enact so many laws, which is the whole point of investing the exclusive legislative authority there.