3 ms·
US House Speaker Johnson says Congress can 'eliminate' district courts
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jfengel 2y agoHe's right. Article III is very short. Everything it says on the subject: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." It doesn't explicitly say that they can be dis-established, but it's clear that the Constitution specifies nothing about the court structure past the Supreme Court. If the Congress specifies a new one, the old one goes away. The Constitution is generally vague, and it's pretty clear that once they got past articles I and II they were tired of arguing, so they just punted. Eliminating the district courts just because you don't like the fact that some of them are run by your political opponents... as far as I'm concerned that undercuts the social contract that undergirds the Constitution. But for the few moments between his eliminating the District Courts, and the secession of a dozen or more states, he'd be technically correct. The best kind of correct.