Legislative override of SCOTUS

Analysis My opponent’s plan will act as the resolution for today’s debate, thus I must prove it to be a harm to win while my opponent must show why the plan is helpful. If I show more harms than benefits for today’s topic, vote con and vice versa for pro. Contention 1: Violates Marbury vs. Madison In case my opponent is unaware, Marbury v. Madison is a monumental Supreme Court case that has dictated the job of the Supreme Court. The power of judicial review was given to the Supreme Court at this time and has remained for eras in America. https://www.oyez.org... When we violate the very basis of judicial review by making it the decision of Congress to overrule a vote, we see huge implication. One such implication is the balance of power between all branches of government. If we were to weaken one and strengthen the other we return to an uncivilized society in which determination of law comes from one source. This would only be the start. This would set a precedent in which government abuses its authority by putting one branch of government over another. Thus, we need to stick to our roots and keep checks and balances to assure a fair and just government. Remember, representative governments do best when it keeps the power shared between the many branches of government to prevent the “tyranny of the majority.” Also, my opponent may have many qualms with the Supreme Court system, but we must not usurp the power of the highest court in the land simply because of controversial court decisions which may have some shaky reasoning behind. There are other solutions such as term limits which can eliminate incumbents and prevent polarity from occurring in the Supreme Court. http://www.britannica.com... Contention 2: Already done in the status quo My opponent is under the presumption that his idea has not been though of before. However, this is not the case. If we were to look at the American Prospect in 2001, we would see that there have been cases in which Congress disagreed with a certain interpretation of the Supreme Court and has been struck down. The American Prospect gives many examples including one example in 1982 where Congress had overruled a Supreme Court Decision by amending the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to overrule a narrow decision by the Supreme Court in Mobile v. Bolden which had addressed whether intentional discrimination had to be shown before the act could be invoked. http://prospect.org... Not only this, but state governments also have the right to pass bills regardless of judicial decisions that have been made in the past. Despite the ruling for same-sex marriage in the summer of 2015, there has been a recent law that has been up for debate about whether homosexuals have the right to be married in Mississippi. http://thinkprogress.org... .This has inherently shown the fact that the Supreme Court’s decision means nothing to the majority of people as there is already another way behind a ruling without passing a bill for it. Not only this, but we see less of an impact of the idea proposed since the legislative branch already has the power, whether official or unofficial, to decide over the Supreme Court. Contention 3: Job Many people have criticized the entire debacle with homosexuality in the Supreme Court being a fraudulent ruling. However, there was a reason provided with context on the constitutional decision about marriage. The fourteenth amendment has stated that all are equal under the law and had established due process even further. This has been used before in other cases involving practices of discrimination including Brown v. Board of Education, Plessy v. Ferguson, and surprisingly the recent decision claiming same sex marriage to be constitutional. This is the way it works in the Supreme Court. The job of the justices are to prove whether a certain issue is constitutional or not by citing evidence. That is what was done in the homosexuality case and will be done for many cases to come. http://www.usnews.com... One can’t simply judge whether the Supreme Court did its job or not as it clearly did. This is just in a way that was controversial and misunderstood by the public. The decision basically said that since equal representation under the law is in the US constitution, so is the equal representation of marriage. Whether people on either side of the debate agree or disagree with the decision is not important. The only thing important is that a decision was made with some constitutional logic backing it. Contention 4: Separation of Powers The multiple branches of government has different jobs for a reason. The legislative branch creates laws, the judicial branch interprets the law, and the executive branch enforces the law. With this in mind, we need to see that the plan today challenges the very notion of separation of powers which leads to inherent harms. Congress does not have the constitutional knowledge to make an interpretation about said document. The legislative branch’s knowledge lies mainly with the current events and politics surrounding the US. This means that by Congress overriding the decisions of the Supreme Court, Congress makes an uninformed decision with not as much understanding as the Supreme Court. Separation of powers also exists so each department can run more effectively. If one branch is doing all of the work, then we are going to see less efficient decisions at a higher level. Contention 5: Counter plan To eliminate corruption in every branch of government, we need to establish term limits that are shorter for every government official. This would solidify the fact that government should not be considered a job, but the active duty of a citizen to help his fellow neighbor. We could also have annual audits to check polarity within the Supreme Court, Congress, and executive branch to make sure that each political ideology is represented. For example, we would not have too many Democratic or Republican representatives within the Supreme Court. This would effectively limit corruption within the entire system without blaming one part of the problem. On to my Rebuttals Rebuttal 1: Constitution disregarded I will concede in some cases that the constitution is the last thing on the justices’ minds when looking toward a vote or opinion on a topic. However, remember that the only job that is under the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction is to prove whether or not a law is constitutional through citing evidence in the constitution. Thus, it is the court’s interpretation of the constitution, and should be respected as such. If this is correct, then the Supreme Court justices have done their job. While the Supreme Court may be wrong, the job has been done and congress can still rebel from the decision via redefining the scope of legislation and adding amendments as described in a previous point. Rebuttal 2: Legislative power usurped Actually, we see that the legislative branch has a way to weasel past Supreme Court decisions as is. Also, we see that the Supreme Court decisions do not apply to state laws as shown by the Mississippi law in another one of my previous arguments. Supreme Court power is actually surprisingly weak. Rebuttal 3: Abusive rulings Sure, they happen, but congress has a back door for these abusive and narrow rulings already without the need to pass a plan to usurp the power of the judicial branch and threaten democracy. Also, my opponent seems to have forgotten the fact that the legislative branch has passed good rulings in the past which have helped the American people throughout the civil rights movement. With this in mind, we can’t simply pass off the rulings if the Supreme Court as always abusive, and the fact that rulings are entirely theoretical and only effect some laws that can’t weasel through with the method shown before, we need to see that the power of the Supreme Court has very little effect on a lot of the laws passed today. As shown, the power of the Supreme Court needs to be kept for the reasons mentioned, vote con.