William Rehnquist Quotes
It is always possible for the court to overreach its proper bounds and perhaps declare a lot of laws unconstitutional and frustrate the will of the majority in a way that it ought not be frustrated.
Rehnquist, William H. Interview by Brian Lamb. Booknotes, C-SPAN, 21 June 1992.
The Roosevelt administration had stemmed the tide of Hoover’s Great Depression but the nation had not yet recovered. The New Deal measures, most of which would be considered fundamental to good government 50 years later was being constantly thwarted by a Supreme Court with a strong arch conservative majority headed by James McReynolds, a virulent, overt, anti-Semitic racist, who hated FDR—see {616652} and {585241}. The situation was to many like that which existed before the Civil War when the Court rendered the Dred Scott decision that so harmed the nation. Frankfurter, not then a Supreme Court Justice, urged Roosevelt to do something lest the American Public lose all respect for the Court and our Constitutional system and have the nation harmed by not allowing reforms like child labor laws to go through. The court actually ruled by a narrow majority that the government could not pass laws making it illegal for 11 year old children to work in coal mines or factories. FDR attempted to add more justices turning the majority into a majority—“packing the Supreme Court”, but that politically backfired. Some of the reforms never went through while others needed Constitutional Amendments like the end to Prohibition.
This concept of balance of power and the equal role of the judiciary is actually quite rare. Even in Parliamentary democracies the parliament can override any court interpretation. In England, the upper legislative house, the House of Lords, actually serves as the nation’s highest or supreme court. And these “Law Lords” can override all regular judicial bodies.
One of the conundrums of our constitutional system is who has the last word as to what the Constitution means. Essentially it is the judicial branch headed by the Supreme Court. But there are those who believe that the current popular majority should have a say in what is or is not constitutional. If so the legislative branch should have the last word. Still others say that the President is the only person elected by ALL the people, so his opinion most reflects the will of the public. And then there are most who argue that the Constitutional system was created just to avoid the power of currently popular majorities, and the courts should decide based on the Constitution itself. So the statement has very little meaning except that Phillips thinks that the courts have too much power. Whoever gets to decide what is or is not Constitutional will be accused of being “over” the Constitution by those who don’t like the decisions. In our system, that is the courts.
In 2002 the corrupt Indonesian Courts ruled that a very solvent Canadian company Manulife was bankrupt so that others could get control. The international financial and political community wanted the Indonesian government to intervene and reverse the rulings, but historically the courts had no independence and had been tools of the government.
Jefferson’s fears were later reinforced by John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison {606468}
William Hubbs Rehnquist was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States for 33 years, as an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and as Chief Justice from 1986 until his death in 2005. Considered a conservative, Rehnquist favored a conception of federalism that emphasized the Tenth Amendment's reservation of powers to the states. Under this view of federalism, the court, for the first time since the 1930s, struck down an act of Congress as exceeding its power under the Commerce Clause.
