Senator Brown on Gingrich’s Imperial Ambitions

Commenting on a USA TODAY editorial a couple of weeks ago on Gingrich’s campaign promise to, as president, haul-in judges whose rulings he doesn’t like, force them to explain their rulings and to abolish entire courts he doesn’t agree with, I said in a letter that “[Gingrich’s] interpretation [of the Constitution] would undermine the timeless, functioning, checks-and-balances system that was so brilliantly crafted by the Founders — all for the sake of satiating one man’s ego.”

Well, that is just me, a lowly blogger and just a Democrat.

Fortunately, others, including prominent Republicans such as Columnist George Will and George W. Bush’s attorney general, Michael Mukasey, have criticized Gingrich’s sinister grab for absolute power.

I was also pleasantly surprised to read a Wednesday Boston Globe op-ed by none other than Republican Senator Scott Brown really telling it like it is and, coming from a Republican — and a Tea Party favorite — with some authority and quite an impact.

Admitting that some federal courts have sometimes overstepped their bounds, but emphasizing that there are Constitutional ways to deal with such judges, Brown says:

… [U]nder Gingrich’s scheme…Judges would be deciding cases while constantly looking over their shoulder at the possibility of retaliation from politicians. Our system of checks and balances, the foundation of our constitutional order, would be undermined. Public confidence in the impartiality of the courts would be shattered. If a president and majorities in Congress could simply overturn the constitutional interpretations of the Court, and if judges could be arrested for displeasing politicians in the other two branches, we would be placing our basic rights in jeopardy. The rule of law would be destroyed.

On Gingrich’s claims of being a historian (not a lobbyist) Brown says:

…[Gingrich] is either blissfully unaware that the Founding Fathers deliberately established our government with three co-equal branches of government, or he is fully aware of that elementary fact and yet is pandering to the right-wing extreme element in our own party. I do not know which is worse. I do know that an independent judiciary possessing equal power with the legislative and executive branches is essential if our government is to operate as it was intended.

Brown concludes:

An independent judiciary is a cornerstone of our democracy. That Gingrich would make the courts tremble at the thought of retaliation from the president or whatever political party has the majority at the time is a very dangerous notion that threatens the founding principles of our government. If the former speaker doesn’t publicly disavow these views, the voters in New Hampshire and elsewhere will disavow his views on this issue.

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