A September 2003 Focus on the Family CitizenLink article on the introduction of H. R. 3190 noted it would . . .
. . . prohibit federal courts from ruling on constitutional challenges to the display of the Ten Commandments, recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and the mere existence of the national motto.
U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., is the chief sponsor of the Safeguarding Our Religious Liberties Act, the mirror image of a Senate bill introduced this summer by Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo. Both bills point to Article III, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution as the authority for taking certain matters out of the hands of federal courts (at least those below the Supreme Court) and reserving them as matters for individual states to decide.
Pickering's bill, H.R. 3190, is the fifth piece of legislation to seek, in some fashion, to limit the power of the judiciary to have the final say on certain issues of religious liberty. Amanda Izsak, federal issues analyst at Focus on the Family, said Pickering's bill and Allard's -- S. 1558, the Religious Liberty Restoration Act -- are the best of the bunch.
"They are the strongest and most comprehensive, stripping federal courts from the Pledge, 'In God We Trust' and the Ten Commandments," Izsak said. "No other bill addresses all three of these important religious-liberty issues."
The fact that a form of the legislation has now been introduced into each chamber of Congress, she added, "demonstrates real commitment from legislators and gives the legislation a great chance of success."
"This is wonderful news for the millions of Americans who want their religious liberties protected. This bill will halt our runaway judiciary and place fair limits on the breadth of their power."
In asking Congress to apply Article III, Section 2, the bills seek nothing that the House and Senate haven't done routinely throughout history -- and more than a dozen times during the 107th Congress.
In the 2002 Senate appropriations bill for funds to fight the war on terror, for instance, language protecting the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota from certain environmental restrictions included this note: "Any actions authorized by this section shall not be subject to judicial review by any court of the United States." The author of that language? None other than famously liberal South Dakota Democrat Tom Daschle.
Among the other laws passed that invoked Article III, Section 2 powers were the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act, the American Servicemembers Protection Act of 2002, the Aviation Security Act and even a law to expedite construction of a World War II memorial in Washington, D.C.
Over the past four decades the federal courts have magically discovered a collection of rights and mandates in the US Constitution heretofore unknown even to those who wrote it. The power to interpret has become the power to destroy. The law has become whatever judges say it is, not what is actually in the underlying document, hence the pressing need for Congress to legislate jurisdictional exceptions under Article III, Section 2 and wrest power from the activist courts.
But I say we add an amendment to both these companion bills, one that will throw some cold water on the flaming hubris that has consumed the federal judiciary. Suppose, just for a bit of extra judicial reform, we add language prohibiting the judges from wearing robes, and from being addressed as "The Honorable" or "Your Honor." Let's mandate the title "Civil Servant" instead.
Imagine attorneys arguing their cases to a guy in a suit, addressing him as "Civil Servant Smith." Now there's a remedy for a swelled head. I suppose we could also replace the gavel with a kazoo or one of those clown horns, but maybe that will have to wait for later legislation.
Focus on the Family's Stop Judicial Tyranny site has a page with links to the bills' complete text, plus the handy Capwiz utility for contacting your representative and senators.
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