General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Thom Hartmann spanked a couple of DU'ers today on his show - [View all]HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)He said the court gave itself that power. Which is true, as I learned in Con Law 400 many years ago.
And Article 3 doesn't "explicitly" give the SC the power to declare laws unconstitutional.
"The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states;--between a state and citizens of another state;--between citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects."
And as we have seen with Plessy (and cases in every arena), what is declared "constitutional" in one era is found "unconstitutional" in the next. Your defense of the SC as some kind of bastion of human rights is ahistorical. It has almost never acted as such in any general way. It has almost always acted as a defender of the propertied against the rest, and arbitrated in disputes of the propertied between themselves and between the State.