Digestible News

The so-called marriage protection act passed the House. Let's make sure it dies, fast, in the Senate (though don't bet on it: all it will take is a simple majority).

Here's the core of it:

No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, section 1738C or this section.

In other words, if this turkey gets past the Senate, no Federal Court will be able to hear matters concerning the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act -- at least until this idiotic piece of legislation is itself rule unconstitutional.

This is driving me nuts.

Funny thing, there would be no need to tell the courts they can't consider a matter of constitutionality -- if they didn't know perfectly well that they the law they don't want them to consider would never pass constitutional muster.

So much for liberty and justice for all.

[UPDATE: Josh Chafetz at Oxblog agrees that this thing is totally unconstitutional. Referring to the article III language used to justify this bill, Josh explains: "But the exceptions and regulations language is clearly talking only about the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction. Congress cannot strip jurisdiction over a federal question from the federal judiciary as a whole."]







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