AOC Gets a Lesson in the Constitution After Mouthing Off About Supreme Court
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been a icon of ignorance for the American left for a half-decade now, but she clearly hasn’t tired of the role one bit.
She proved that much on Sunday in a “State of the Union” interview when she claimed Congress needed to crack down on the Supreme Court for going off the reservation when it comes to leftist causes.
CNN host Dana Bash didn’t bother with any pushback, but AOC attracted plenty of attention on social media — and not the kind she could have wanted.
In the interview, the New York Democrat cited last week’s refreshing rulings by the court that overturned President Joe Biden’s vote-buying plan to forgive student loan repayments, upheld the meaning and power of the First Amendment and dumped, finally, affirmative action programs in colleges and universities that receive federal funding.
For AOC, these rulings, along with last year’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, were a sign that the conservative-dominated court is “overreaching their authority.”
And she explained herself with typical dishonesty.
Check out the end of the interview here:
Rep. @AOC: “If Chief Justice Roberts will not come before Congress for an investigation voluntarily, I believe that we should be considering subpoenas, we should … pass much more binding & stringent ethics guidelines where we see members of the Supreme Court potentially breaking… pic.twitter.com/C5SqIk9u4L
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 2, 2023
“These are the types of rulings that signal a dangerous creep toward authoritarianism and centralization of power in the courts,” Ocasio-Cortez said Sunday. “In fact, we have members of the court themselves, with Justice Elena Kagan saying that the court is beginning to assume the power of a legislature.”
Clearly, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez thinks — or wants her listeners to think — that the legislative branch of the federal government has powers that supersede the judicial branch. Of course, the Senate has the power to impeach federal judges for impropriety — but that’s part of the checks and balances brilliantly devised by the Founders.
Other than that, the separation of powers in the Constitution leaves AOC and colleagues as powerless over the working of the court as Justice Clarence Thomas nutcases in the House Democratic Conference.
It might be a surprise that a lawmaker in her third term appears not to know that, but AOC knows what her audience is and knows what they’ll listen to — truth, for leftists, is not the priority. Likewise, it might have been a surprise that an interviewer like Bash didn’t at least try to insert an objection or clarification, but Bash knows her CNN audience. Again, truth isn’t the priority.
Fortunately for the Republic, if not for Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, there were plenty out there willing to give her a quick tutoring:
SCOTUS can ignore you.
— Jacques Alejandro (@jockohomo_lives) July 2, 2023
Dear @AOC Our Constitution provides three branches of government with separation of powers. How will you overcome that obstacle to regulate USSupr.Ct.? Congress limited to establishing litigation procedures, inferior courts and confirming Pres. appts.
— James Y Rayis (@JYRayis) July 2, 2023
Congress has NO authority for any such action. The attempt itself would be illegal and a Constitutional crisis.
— Rank Badjin (@badjin_rank) July 2, 2023
PLEASE get your facts straight. This is something you are constantly lacking. The Court did NOT overstep their authority. They did reaffirm Congresses abilities. YOU need to understand that. Because you do not like a ruling does not make it wrong or suspect.
— Suzette Cumberland (@SuzetteCumberl3) July 2, 2023
It doesn’t take a constitutional lawyer to know that those rulings don’t signal a “creep” toward authoritarianism on the court or anything else. What they signal is a return to the people of powers the government has taken away.
The Roe ruling was a moral and legal disaster, that stripped the American people and their lawmakers of an issue that’s indisputably a question for elected officials, not judges. Dobbs corrected that.
In its 303 Creative decision, the court upheld the very basic idea that the right of Americans to say what they believe includes the freedom from being forced by the government to say what they don’t believe.
In the Students for Fair Admissions cases, the court was not telling bodies of higher education what procedures to use to admit students. It was stating, as a constitutional principle clear to anyone who understands the English language, that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not allow the kind of “affirmative action” liberal-dominated colleges and universities have practiced for decades.
Those are not decisions of authoritarianism or centralization of power. They’re exactly what the court is supposed to do — read the Constitution and apply it to the legal question at hand.
And while public opinion — poisoned by the half-century of the legalized abortion known as Roe — is split on abortion, a poll reported by the New York Post showed a solid majority of Americans are opposed to affirmative action across the board.
Other polls, according to ABC News, show Americans support the court’s ruling in the free speech case and in slapping down Biden’s student loan scheme.
So the “authoritarianism” that AOC is supposedly afraid of is simply a reset of the court and the law to what most honest Americans understand them to be. (“Honest Americans” automatically excludes a good deal of the Democratic Party, including the congresswoman from Queens.)
After two full terms in the Congress, she clearly needs a remedial class in the actual workings of government under the Constitution.
Maybe this was a start.
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