First Graders Explain Supreme Court and Judicial Activism

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January 19, 2005
By: A. J. DiCintio
First Grade Class, Room 3,
Washington Elementary School

The Supreme Court and Judicial Activism

INTRODUCTION

The Supreme Court has two main jobs. (1) It has the last word what a federal law says. (2) It has the last word about whether any federal, state, or local law is constitutional.

With only two jobs to do and helpers called clerks, the justices must have a lot of free time. Beth thinks some of them spend that time thinking in a portable think tank they keep in their office. But as you will wee, other justices don't do much thinking at all because they use their think tanks only for imagining. Maybe they are allergic to thinking.

JOB NUMBER ONE

When Supreme Court justices must decide what a federal law says, they should quote the words of the law and use plain English to explain their decision. That's not hard at all. But when a law doesn't say something or its language doesn't make sense, the justices must never try to figure out what Congress intended because the Constitution says that only Congress can make laws.

If a law doesn't say something, the justices should ask the lawyers how they could mistake the Supreme Court building for the Capitol. But what should the justices do if they cannot understand a federal law? That's easy. They must declare the law unconstitutional. Then, they should send a note to Congress. Here is our suggestion
for the note.

"Dear Congress, the Supreme Court has declared [name of law here] unconstitutional because normal people can't understand what it says. Why? It is filled with secret words known only to its authors, it uses more Latin words than English works, it uses school words when an outdoor word or an at home word would be much clearer, and it has sentences that take up a whole page. This law contradicts itself [place number here] times. And as if that isn't bad enough, it talks about pretend things like congressional oversight and social security trust fund. It also has [place number here] spelling errors."

Some justices refuse to send this note and prefer to make up their own law instead. What should their punishment be? They should get much worse than a time out. They should be impeached by the House and found guilty by the Senate for refusing to obey the Constitution. But this will not happen, because Beth's mom says the cow will jump over the moon before a chickenhearted* Congress will do its job.

*When Beth asked her mom what this word means, her mom said that like an at home word, we should not put in our book. But we used it because we don't want to be like the judges who make up their own words for words someone else said or didn't say. Besides, since we looked up its definition, we use chickenhearted all the time to describe activism pertains to it.

JOB NUMBER TWO

The Supreme Court may declare a law unconstitutional. When the Court does this, the justices must quote exact words from the Constitution. Why? There are two very important reasons. The first reason is the same old story. When the Constitution doesn't say something and the justices close their eyes and click their heels to help them imagine what they think the Constitution ought to say, they are making up their own laws.

The second reason is very important, too. When justices imagine a law, it becomes law for the whole country. But the Tenth Amendment says that any power not given to the federal government belongs to the states individually. Both of these reasons explain why "activist" justices are doing something very dangerous. We explain the danger
this way: It would be nice if the Supreme Court rules that all first graders have a constitutional right to free ice cream every day. Yes, that would be nice, but it would be wrong. And everybody knows that ice cream you get by doing wrong will make you very sick.

If you still don't believe that judges who imagine laws want to boss our country like dictators, think about this: A judge tells you that everything in the whole world is changing all the time and that only he or she knows what things are at any given moment. For example, the judge tells you that what was an apple yesterday is a banana today. Later, the judge tells you that the apple which became a banana is now an orange, even though normal people know it has been an apple all along. What would you say to such a judge? (We don't mean that you should email us your answer.)

So, if justices read the exact words of the Constitution, it is a pretty easy job for them to find out if a law is constitutional or not. (We read the Constitution ourselves and found it easy to understand. Try it! Every American should.)

Now, what should the Supreme Court do when it correctly declares a law unconstitutional? As before, it should send a note to Congress. Here is our suggestion: "Dear Congress [or other legislature], you have passed an unconstitutional law [name of law here]. You really should stop allowing "activist" legislators to write laws. And you ought to read the Constitutional for yourselves. We promise that it's very easy to understand unless your like to pretend you're the Wizard of Oz.

Don't fell bad, Congress, we've got some Wizard of Oz "activists" on our court. And like other "activists", iall they want to do is imagine laws that are constitutional and then force them on every person in the whole country. Of course, judicial "activists" don't hide behind a black curtain; they hide behind a black robe. But where they hide doesn't matter because Beth's mom told us that whether dictators are trying to sneak up behind you or whether they're right in front of you in disguise, you can always smell them."

This is all you need to know about the Supreme Court's job Number Two and how the idea of judicial activism pertains to it.

CONCLUSION

Now that you know everything you need to know about the Supreme Court and judicial activism, you ought to do this: Read the Constitution yourself, defend it, and work to amend it if you don't like it. Then, think about the "activist" judges who in one ruling say they must follow the "current mood" of the country and in the next ruling tell us the "current mood" of the country doesn't matter one bit. Even a first grader knows that the correct word for such people is dictator.

Beth's mom says we are right and suggested we end our book with a plea for "activist" to think about a line from Robert Burns, her favorite poet. We agreed except for one small change in the quote, which we send to every judicial activist. To a Louse: "O wad some Power the giftie give us. To see ourselves as first graders see us!"

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