Jun 23, 2016 11:31 PM
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arch...ch/488123/
EXCERPT: [...] Once again, the Court is being asked to referee a dispute that should really be handled by one (or both) of the other branches of government, like a neighbor called in to settle a fight between two warring spouses. But this is the new model of American governance: Politics has become so poisonous and treacherous that it has incapacitated two of the three branches of government. And the only one left to pick up the slack —which is to say, advance major changes relating to healthcare, equal rights, climate change and immigration—is an unelected body of five men and three women (at present) serving lifetime tenures at their leisure.
According to Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing writer for The Atlantic, “This problem has been in the works for a long time. Even before we had this level of dysfunction, Congress was passing the buck and pointing fingers. They’d pass vague pieces of legislation and leave the details to courts.”
But today, Ornstein argues, the problem of dysfunction has magnified: a Frankenstein built in the lab, running amok in the streets. If the rise of a furious and unmanageable political force was not already cause for Americans to be concerned about the state of affairs, this week is showing the country that something is very, very wrong with its democracy: The courts are governing. That’s not what they were supposed to do....
EXCERPT: [...] Once again, the Court is being asked to referee a dispute that should really be handled by one (or both) of the other branches of government, like a neighbor called in to settle a fight between two warring spouses. But this is the new model of American governance: Politics has become so poisonous and treacherous that it has incapacitated two of the three branches of government. And the only one left to pick up the slack —which is to say, advance major changes relating to healthcare, equal rights, climate change and immigration—is an unelected body of five men and three women (at present) serving lifetime tenures at their leisure.
According to Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing writer for The Atlantic, “This problem has been in the works for a long time. Even before we had this level of dysfunction, Congress was passing the buck and pointing fingers. They’d pass vague pieces of legislation and leave the details to courts.”
But today, Ornstein argues, the problem of dysfunction has magnified: a Frankenstein built in the lab, running amok in the streets. If the rise of a furious and unmanageable political force was not already cause for Americans to be concerned about the state of affairs, this week is showing the country that something is very, very wrong with its democracy: The courts are governing. That’s not what they were supposed to do....