Legislative override of SCOTUS

Rebuttal 1: Power Balance The Supreme Court does not legislate. What the Supreme Court does is determine the constitutionality of cases given to them which influences policy. The Supreme Court has this right since Marbury vs. Madison. The job of the Supreme Court is in jeopardy when enacting your plan due to the fact that we are reducing the power of the Supreme Court to have judicial power, not legislative power like my opponent claims. Regardless of Thomas Jefferson’s opinion, let us look toward the current power of the legislative branch to which we are giving power. Yes, the Supreme Court does make decisions based on policy preferences, but the recent supreme court ruling on gay marriage despite a conservative majority in the Supreme Court points toward the fact that the Supreme Court is not as biased as many think. Not only this, but Congress is shown to be much more corrupt with lobbyists and money being a huge influence in reelection. This is different for the Supreme Court members as they are elected for life, thus they do not have to appeal to voters to pass a decision. However, the judges can be impeached, proving there are some ways to limit Supreme Court power anyway. I have proven that there is power shift toward congress. If we turn toward the Center for Responsive Politics, we can see that lobbying has gone up exponentially and will continue to do so as the corruption increases in congress. So even if I were to buy that the Supreme Court has become lawless, which it has not then giving power to another corrupt political entity is not the correct answer. https://www.opensecrets.org... Rebuttal 2: Changes with time I feel like my opponent did not read my full argument on this. Remember, I gave an example showing a literal and figurative interpretation of the 2nd amendment. What the actual language in the second amendment states is that the standing militia should be given firearms, not the mass populace This can also be proven due to my opponent’s own interpretation of past Supreme Court decisions, as he disagrees with the understanding of the constitution as given by Kennedy, or any other judge. Rebuttal 3: Contradiction I never said that the Supreme Court should have all legislative power, only that the interpretation of the constitution should be in the hands of the Supreme Court. Rebuttal 4: Failed in status quo My opponent has stated that because the leader of a movement to challenge Supreme Court decisions is fired, that means that he entire argument I gave was a falsity. This is untrue, as there are still laws that the Supreme Court does not support that are being passed in the status quo. I have given one example but there are plenty more. Yes, it is illegal, but the point of this argument is to show that the Supreme Court is not as arrogant or lawless as my opponent claims, and that their decisions are not being valued on the state level. Rebuttal 5: Marbury vs. Madison abusive Again, my opponent has only given me opinions, and has yet to show why the constitution can’t be interpreted figuratively. The Supreme Court is no more powerful than Congress, which disregards what the people want and pass policy for monetary gain. I have already shown the influence of lobbying n politics, and what we need to see that Congress is no better than the Supreme Court, and that Congress can easily abuse this new power simply to pass policy that they feel is needed. Rebuttal 6: Can’t use counter plan “a plan designed to counter another plan, an alternate or substitute plan” http://www.merriam-webster.com... My counterplan stands according to Merriam-Webster; a counter plan is simply a plan in place of another plan. This has not been violated in my argument, ergo it stands. What needs to be seen is that I have a plan that could avoid all of the negative points of today’s debate while decaying the power of all branches of government so that it serves the people with no corruption involved. Rebuttal 7: Opinions My opponent has shown that legal experts disagree with this side, but that should not be taken into this debate. Remember, we are debating whether this would be a net benefit to the people to have Congress override the Supreme Court, and what we are setting as a precedent. The precedent we are setting is limiting the power of the Supreme Court to do its job. This is a problem, as it means that lawmakers will look at this in the future and think the same thing when making an even more important decision. So, regardless of the opinions of many legal experts, let us realize the argumentum ad populum dictates that regardless of the amount of people, whether legal experts or not, the point is not considered valid. Simply citing an expert opinion does not negate my point, it simply shows you are not attacking the source, you are simply citing experts. With this in mind, negate. Conclusion Allow me to go over my opponent’s points. He states that the Supreme Court has supreme power over the legislative branch, which is untrue as they only interpret the constitution. He gives expert opinions that only point to the fact that the constitution is a living document which is not specific enough. And finally, he puts words in mouth, saying that I claim that the Supreme Court should have supreme legislative power, which is false. Clearly, the negative side wins.