By Selwyn Duke

Does our current status quo make our Constitution a suicide pact? Thomas Jefferson certainly said as much, warning that accepting judicial supremacy would make our founding document just that, a felo de se, as he put it in Latin.

Acceptance of judicial supremacy, by the way, is precisely why President Trump’s temporary ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations is on hold. Imagine that, Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist, No. 78 that the judiciary is the "least dangerous” branch of government because it "has no influence over either the sword or the purse,” yet it’s trumping the man with the sword, the president. But does it have to be this way?

No, Trump could simply ignore the court ruling suspending his ban.

Outrageous!? Unconstitutional!? Actually, it’s wholly constitutional.

In his dissent from the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges marriage ruling, late Justice Antonin Scalia warned that with "each decision... unabashedly based not on law,” the Court moves "one step closer to being reminded of [its] impotence.” What did Scalia know about courts’ power?

That it’s basically an illusion.

Let’s do a civics quiz. Why does the legislative branch have the power to make law? Why does the executive branch (presidency) have the power to enforce law? The answer in both cases is because the Constitution grants it.

Okay, now how is it that the judiciary has the "power” to rule on law and have its decisions constrain not just its own branch, but the other two as well? How have the courts become king? Because the Constitution grants…no, stop. It’s not in the Constitution — anywhere.

Rather, this "power” was declared by the courts themselves, most notably in the 1803 Marbury v. Madison decision.

That’s right, the Supreme Court gave the Supreme Court the supreme power to have the final say on laws’ meaning.

It’s a great con if you can pull it off.

The point is that the judiciary enjoys this power at the executive branch’s pleasure. As soon as the latter says, to paraphrase Andrew Jackson, "The courts have made their decision; now let them enforce it,” that power goes bye-bye. The judiciary is reminded of its impotence.

So it isn’t just that the courts lack the sword or purse, the possession and exercise of which could simply amount to might making right. They also have no constitutional claim to judicial supremacy. In fact, the power is a violation of everything for which America stands. Jefferson explained why in 1820, writing that "to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all

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