Supreme Court Authority

Comments debate the US Supreme Court's power to declare laws unconstitutional, interpret the Constitution, and override Congress, questioning judicial review, binding precedents, and constitutional fidelity.

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AFAIK US EPA OK SCOTUS TX EO RGB UK ABCD court constitution supreme supreme court scotus law unconstitutional congress constitutional laws

Sample Comments

adgjlsfhk1 Sep 15, 2024 View on HN

the courts de-jure can't override Congress, but de-facto, the current court is very wind to read things in bizarre ways.

IncreasePosts Jul 31, 2025 View on HN

Just saying "It's unconstitutional" doesn't really cut it. It's a question for the courts to decide (based on the constitution).

galadriel Jun 28, 2013 View on HN

The fact that courts can declare laws to be unconstitutional is a hack out of Supremacy clause, as decided by the SCOTUS itself in one of the early cases. All other rules still apply, such as proving your standing for harm, which you cannot, if the executive keeps everything secret.A proper constitutional court (as implemented by many other countries) is much more suited to these kinds of cases, which concern the spirit of Constitution, rather than specifics of harm and injuries to one specif

gizmo686 Jun 10, 2013 View on HN

There are two types of decisions made by SCOTUS. In the first type, they rule on Constitutional grounds, in which case it is binding to Congress. In other cases they simply rule on the interperatation of laws themselves; so if Congress changes said laws, the ruling becomes irrelevent. The law in question here is 'interesting' in the sense that it tells the court how to interpret the Constitution. If it ever gets brought up before SCOTUS, my guess would be they would deem the law uncons

brokensegue Mar 14, 2018 View on HN

what SCOTUS says defines what is constitutional. you may disagree with their ruling but they are the meaningful authority.

Jtsummers Feb 28, 2025 View on HN

If SCOTUS says it's ok, then the US Constitution is completely tossed out and SCOTUS has no authority to say anything. That's not to say they wouldn't make a decision like that, but to disregard the literal text of the Constitution would make both Congress and SCOTUS unnecessary, they can be scrapped in seconds with an EO after a decision like that.

viburnum Aug 7, 2019 View on HN

This is wrong. Also, the constitution says whatever the majority of the court says it does.

pstuart Jun 26, 2015 View on HN

The SCOTUS didn't make any law here, they simply said the laws being passed were unconstitutional. Isn't that what they're supposed to do?

jandrese Jul 1, 2024 View on HN

"Official Act" has not been defined, so who knows if going against the the Constitution will count. The way the law is worded it may not matter anyway, it's pretty much left up to the courts to decide.

mac01021 Jul 25, 2020 View on HN

Maybe?If the Supreme Court has made decisions which many people think constitute an obvious, willful misinterpretation of the constitution.I think it's reasonable to say, if that's your take, that the constitutional authority does not exist.