Ok, dinner is cooked and eaten. The other thing I was going to add was that one of the first big incidents that happened that involved the enforcement of a Supreme Court decision occurred during Andrew Jackson’s Presidency. The Court heard a case called Worcester v. Georgia that was essentially a dispute over the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. The Court ruled against Georgia, leading to an apocryphal quote by Jackson: “John Marshall [Chief Justice at the time] has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” Jackson probably never actually said that, but he had made it clear that he didn’t agree with the decision and was not interested in helping to enforce it. The Court had ordered Worcester to be freed from jail, and Georgia refused. Georgia basically said the Court had overstepped and they weren’t going to comply with the order. Then South Carolina stepped in and issued an Ordinance of Nullification, nullifying some federal tariffs within South Carolina, and Andrew Jackson said “Oh, shit. This is bad.” Well…in my head he did. This prompted him to issue the Nullification Proclamation, making it clear in no uncertain terms that states absolutely could NOT nullify federal laws and that state sovereignty did not supersede federal sovereignty. Crises averted! Well…until 1860 or so. Anyway, it feels like a number of states are testing the waters on this issue again, and I don’t like it. I think it’s also a nice illustration that the Supreme Court doesn’t have any inherent power to enforce its decisions, and the current Court would do well to remember that when people start talking about imposing ethics rules on them.
Wait… Maybe I’m thinking of a different decision? Maybe a challenge to the Indian Removal Act of 1830? But yeah, nullification by GA/SC was key to the actual removal itself? Is that Cherokee Nation V. GA?
All of this was pretty local history for me, as I grew up not too far from New Echota and the house of Major Ridge (which was a popular destination for school trips).
Maybe. Worcester was a Christian missionary who was working with the Cherokee Nation and some attorneys to try to establish that the Cherokee Nation was a sovereign nation. Somewhat counterintuitively, they were challenging a Georgia law that required white people to apply for a permit to live on Cherokee land. The intent of the law was to keep white settlers from encroaching on Cherokee land, but the Cherokee objected to the fact that it was the State of Georgia who issued or denied these permits, rather than the Cherokee themselves. So Worcester and another guy moved onto Cherokee land without a permit in defiance of the law, and were arrested, convicted, and jailed. Then they appealed and it ended up in the Supreme Court, who ruled in their favor. The order from the Supreme Court was never complied with. After a couple of years, I think, a new governor pardoned Worcester, rendering the issue moot. I think the Indian Removal Act and subsequent lawsuit came right on the heels of all those events. I might have some details wrong. These cases can get very confusing.
I think the removal act was in 1830? And this particular decision was earlier in the 20s (23, maybe)? Cherokee Nation v. Georgia was in 1831? But they both seem to be examples of states just disregarding SCOTUS decisions, due to a lack of enforcement power (which falls under the executive branch, I think?).
Yeah, same with the history around it, since it’s not my field/era - though I have to teach this era since we do the whole thing in one semester, rather than splitting it at the CW into two semesters. I’m a Cold War/youth culture/mass culture historian, so…
Worcester v. Georgia was after Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, actually. 1832. A dissenting opinion in Worcester even referenced Cherokee Nation v. Georgia. So it all basically happened concurrently.
Excellent! I think we’re getting this historical timeline together, finally! 
But basically, it all comes down to ethnic cleansing, which happened whatever the SCOTUS decision was… But overall, I think our general point was about enforcement powers? That’s still the executive branch, yeah?
Incidentally, how much constitutional law did you get into during your classes? I find the law to be so broad and complex, that I really wonder how a legal education is divided up?
So, Constitutional Law is one of the core classes in US legal education, along with Torts, Civil Procedure, Contracts, Property Law, and Criminal Law. It was probably the class I was most looking forward to when I started law school, but ended up being very disillusioning. Basically, all of the current criticisms of the Supreme Court have all been there since day 1. None of the current criticisms are new. Not a one of them. The Court has always been political. Ethics issues have always been a problem, and tend to crop up every so often. And bullshit reasoning has also always been there. I’m not sure exactly when the idea that the Court was this august body above mundane politics and above reproach got started, but the media has certainly helped paint that image over the years, and it’s always been bullshit. My favorite example to illustrate that these problems have always been there is the first famous case the Court decided: Marbury v. Madison. The case that endowed the Court with the power of judicial review, a power not explicitly granted it by the Constitution. It is arguably implied, but it is not spelled out explicitly. And everyone knows this. But what most people don’t know is what Marbury v. Madison was actually about. It was about a judicial appointment. President Adams, on his way out the door, tried to fill as many judicial vacancies as he could. At the time, in addition to Senate confirmation, the appointments had to be delivered to the appointee. Adams’s Secretary of State had the task of delivering all these last minute appointments, and they were literally working right up until Jefferson’s inauguration to get them delivered. But they didn’t get all of them done. The Secretary of State left them, including Mr. Marbury’s, on his desk hoping the incoming Secretary of State, James Madison, would be a good egg and deliver them. He did not, of course, so Marbury sued him. The Supreme Court had original jurisdiction in the case, and the newly installed Chief Justice, John Marshall, wrote the opinion. And that’s funny. Why? Because he was also the outgoing Secretary of State who left the appointments for Madison to deliver. John Marshall wrote the majority opinion in a Supreme Court case involving events he was directly involved in. Now, I don’t know what the common practice was back then. Maybe recusal wasn’t a thing yet, but holy shit. Anyway, not really relevant to the discussion, but I like to bring up that little fact to illustrate that the Court has always kind of sucked.
Good question? I don’t know… Probably the same place we get the narrative that the founding fathers were disinterested, august men, who were above the political fray, hence were better suited to running things. Myth making is a key aspect of nation-states. These can often elide actual history, and make things seem “natural” rather than historically constructed.
But yeah, even the Warren court was political, and a product of its time (ie the liberal consensus, post-New Deal era). We just like their politics better!
Oh good point! I get the sense that pat of what’s happening here is that this is part of building the modern judicial system, so they’re kind of figuring it out as they go along. Here is where those myths are built, I think.
TIL… this is a thing!
Geena Davis is a really amazing person. In addition to being a great actress, she founded that institute, she has been an advocate for women in sports and Title IX, and she tried out for the US Olympic Archery Team in 1999. She didn’t make it, but she placed 24th out of 300 women, which is pretty freakin amazing considering she took up the sport only 2 years before.
By the time it gets to the sexbot I had to stop watching.
DeSantis will have a new target in addition to Disney if he becomes president.
… However, at that time I was watching a lot of Netflix and I was getting more and more recommendations for series with lesbian storylines, or bi characters.
He will call Netflix a “groomer.”
Rule of law only works if everyone agrees to play by the rules, of course…
I hope you don’t mind, I’m sticking this in my famous quotes file, because I think it touches on something deep. Something many people have forgotten, and is often overlooked.
I almost put this in the Olds/Good Ol’ Days of Tech thread, lol.
That video reminds me of parts of my favorite attraction from Disney when I was a kid.
