Impeachment of PA Supreme Court Justices is Not About Gerrymandering
There is a lot of misinformation surrounding the House Resolutions I introduced this week calling for the impeachment of four Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices who blatantly violated our state and federal constitutions.
This is not a gerrymandering issue; it is an unconstitutional theft of power issue.
The United States of America and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania constitutions have been written to protect the people from any one branch of government overstepping the powers given to it by the people. The constitutions of Pennsylvania and the United States are contracts—contracts between you, The People, and the government you hire to write (legislature), administer (executive branch) and interpret (judiciary) the law.
The Pennsylvania Constitution has a basic understanding forged at its conception. No part of this contract allows for any branch of the government, including the judiciary, to initiate new powers not specifically given to it without the people’s will and vote.
The first four parts of the Pennsylvania constitution are laid out, in descending order, identifying the Sovereigns (Articles I and II those with authority to write the law), the law itself (Article III), the executive (Article IV to administer the law) and the courts (Article V to clear up any disputes when there is question as to the intent of the law.)
The court is the lowest in constitutional order because as specifically spelled out in the Pennsylvania Constitution, they have no sovereignty over the constitution, the congressional maps or any other law. In Pennsylvania it is you, The People, who get the proper and final decision on all constitutional changes.
This is not a gerrymandering issue; it is an unconstitutional theft of power issue.
So, what did the Pennsylvania Supreme Court do? They performed, as attorney Kyle Sammin noted in The Federalist, “a coup d’état” when they wrote their own legislation to create their own gerrymandered congressional district map.
As Sammin noted: “they took the pencils out of the legislature’s hands and said ‘we’ll just write the thing ourselves.’”
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has taken your vote and your hand off those pencils. Your will was no longer represented, but the will of an “elite” few decided for you. Your rights and sovereignty were stolen by the courts to re-write the laws.
These justices have turned the doctrine of first principles and the Pennsylvania Constitution on their heads! On Feb. 19, 2018, the courts overstepped their power, taking it away from you the voter.
This is not a gerrymandering issue; it is an unconstitutional theft of power issue.
Anyone who has risen to the position of Supreme Court Justice has a responsibility to understand this basic precept. When someone takes that right away from you by “whatever means necessary,” you have every right to demand your legislators remove them from power.
The only constitutional check on misbehavior in office for the Supreme Court is impeachment. We started that process on March 19. House Resolutions 766, 767, 768 and 769 have respectively been put forward to begin the impeachment process for Justices David Wecht, Debra Todd, Christine Donahue and Kevin Dougherty.
You, The People, have never granted the courts the authority to write law or alter the Constitution. The people have never granted sovereignty over the writing of law to the courts. Our founders knew better than to allow a few “elites” to rule over us and no generation of Pennsylvanians since 1790 has seen fit to permit them to do so.
Let’s hope the Pennsylvania Legislature is more aware of its responsibilities and authority than the court, and fulfills its civic responsibility to you, The People. I take my oath to support and defend our constitution seriously.
When the elites and activists attempt to tell you this is about the 2011 congressional map, you now know better. Tell them in no uncertain terms that this is not a gerrymandering issue; it is an unconstitutional theft of power issue.
State Representative Cris Dush (R-Jefferson/Indiana)
