Rep. Tom Feeney Is Reading My Mind

I suggested something very much akin to HR 97 – the “Reaffirmation of American Independence Resolution” (which is a resubmission of HR 568 from last term) – which was submitted by Representative Tom Feeney of Florida.
The resolution proposes:

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that the Constitution and the laws of the United States are the supreme law of the land. Yet, with growing frequency, Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have relied upon decisions of foreign judicial courts. Five Supreme Court justices have written or joined opinions that cited foreign authorities – including courts in Jamaica, India, Zimbabwe, and the European Union – to justify their decisions. In a recent speech, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stated, “I suspect that over time [the U.S. Supreme Court] will rely increasingly … on international and foreign courts in examining domestic issues.”

  • Judges in the United States are charged to interpret both the intent of Congress and other American legislative bodies and whether the legislative intent of such bodies can be implemented within the bounds of the Constitution. The views of foreign bodies are not relevant to either of those charges unless they can aid in determining either the original meaning of the Constitution or the legislative intent of state or federal statutes.
  • This Legislation affirms the sense of the House that U.S. judicial decisions should not be based on any foreign laws, court decisions, or pronouncements of foreign governments unless they are relevant to determining the meaning of American constitutional and statutory law.

Congress desperately needs to reassert itself in this matter. The SCOTUS/Judicial system is not a “superior” branch of gov’t, it’s a coequal with the Legislative and Executive. Federal courts, in particular the SCOTUS, need a good smackdown.
In the wake of Roper v. Simmons, I’m hoping Rep. Feeney gains a lot more fans of his bill.

7 Comments

Tom Feeney is a pretty good man with quite a track record of being on the right side of issues. I honestly don’t know how long he intends to stick around in Congress; if he plans on fighting the good fight for us Floridians up in Washington for any length of time, though, expect to hear a lot about him in the future.

Let’s hope he can give some of his Senatorial Republican buddies a spinal transplant.
There are a lot of Representatives with their heads screwed on right. I think that in order to become a Senator, you have to make so many concessions to so many people that you really just lose grounding with reality.

Actually, as I understand it, WordPress allows you to trackback articles simply by using the URL of the story (easy to use, easy to spam, too).

We’ll see if it comes through. Fortunately, SpamKarma seems to catch most, if not all comment and trackback spam.

[…] That’s why I was very happy to run across this post over at Literal Barrage on this very issue that I agree with 100%. It is completely inexcusable for foreign courts to exercise influence in our court system, and this branch of the government needs to be clearly reminded of this constitutional fact. […]