You have too much faith in a 250 year old document. In the last ~5 years we've seen this Supreme Court, despite their alleged "textualist" or "originalist" philosophy, just completley invent things out of thin air. Three examples spring to mind:

1. The "major questions doctrine". This is simply the idea that if the impact of legislation that is passed by Congress and signed by the president is "large" then the Supreme Court gets to overrule the other two branches of government because they want to. Where is that in the Constitution?

2. The "history and traditions text". This is simply the idea that if the political actors on the bench can find (or, in some cses, invent) something that happenned or was "normal" 250 years ago then it is legal precedent. That doesn't seem to apply to abortion however. Benjamin Franklin published instructions on at-home abortions [1]. How is that not "history and tradition"?

3. The court completely invented presidential immunity out of thin air in a country that rebelled against a monarch.

"What's good for companies and their owners?" tends to be a pretty good predictor for what our Supreme Court does.

What we're seeing in France and elsewhere is the dying breath of neoliberalism. Companies are successfully using the courts worldwide to erode individual rights in the interests of profits. The Constitution doesn't protect you from this. The EU's defenses against this sort of thing seem to be eroding, if they existed at all.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099542962/abortion-ben-frank...

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josefritzishere 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

10/10 best comment.

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IAmBroom 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> 1. The "major questions doctrine". This is simply the idea that if the impact of legislation that is passed by Congress and signed by the president is "large" then the Supreme Court gets to overrule the other two branches of government because they want to. Where is that in the Constitution?

That is a wildly inaccurate take on the "major questions doctrine". You are actually describing SCOTUS power to determine if laws are "constitutional", which was decided (by SCOTUS) in 1803 (Marbury v. Madison).

2 and 3 are well-made points.

	▲	kayo_20211030 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It might be a fair-enough interpretation. For major issues, what's ambiguously said (or unsaid) by Congress can be specifically said (or unsaid) by the Courts. Point #2 is related, as it also connected to a requirement to interpret "intent", which is a tricky thing even at the best of times. As for point #3, I can't comment. I don't quite understand Roberts' logic about official vs. discretionary, but I feel it has something to do with original framers' intent also.
	▲	jmyeet an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The Constitutional authority of the Supreme Court was rather vague. There are several areas where the court has what's called "original jurisdiction", the most notable of which is where a state is a party. So when states sue each other, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, meaning it directly hears those cases. The Constitutioin also established lifetime appointment and that the court interpreted constitutionality but didn't really specify what that means, which is actually pretty common for the Constitution. It's not that long of a document. It's up to Congress to establish a lot of the court's powers, the earliest part of which was the Judiciary Act of 1789. The court's ability to review state court decisions didn't come until the 20th century. A big change was Marbury v. Madison, which established the principle of judicial review. The court granted itself this power. My point here is that the concentp of statutory interpretation is not a constitutional authority. And "major questions doctrine" is an issue of statutory interpretation. The origins of this came from a 2000 decision where the court used "common sense" (seriously) to determine what Congress intended [1]: > The doctrine was articulated as a paradigm in FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. (2000), which advised "common sense" in assessing whether Congress intended to delegate broad regulatory powers As the court often does, it grants itself authority then later extends that authority so "common sense" under Rehnquist becamse "major questions doctrine" under Roberts: > It was applied in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA (2014) and King v. Burwell (2015), with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority in the latter.[2] The Court first explicitly called it the "major questions doctrine" in West Virginia v. EPA (2022), where it held that agencies must point to "clear congressional authorization" for the power asserted in "extraordinary cases" The Roberts court then went on to use this subjective idea of "clear Congressional authorization" as strike down Covid mandates, student loan forgiveness, the power of the EPA and a bunch of other very political ends. Weird. And once again, none of this invokes any Constitutional protection or language at all. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_questions_doctrine