Jurisdiction Stripping as a Tool for Democratic Reform of the Supreme Court: Written Testimony for The Presidential Commission On The Supreme Court of the United States by Christopher Jon Sprigman :: SSRN

Jurisdiction Stripping as a Tool for Democratic Reform of the Supreme Court: Written Testimony for The Presidential Commission On The Supreme Court of the United States by Christopher Jon Sprigman :: SSRN

NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 21-34

24 Pages Posted: 16 Aug 2021 Last revised: 6 Dec 2021

Christopher Jon Sprigman

New York University School of Law; New York University (NYU) - Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy

Date Written: August 15, 2021

Abstract

In this written testimony I will focus in depth on what I believe to be the most promising strategy for reducing the power of courts. That is for Congress to use the power that the Constitution has always given it to override, in appropriate cases, decisions of the Supreme Court and indeed any federal court. Not through an Article V amendment, which is virtually always an impossible hurdle to clear. But rather through Congress’s Article III authority to strip the jurisdiction of both the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts. Congress’s virtually plenary power to determine courts’ jurisdiction is, if used with discretion and determination, a power to enforce Congress’s interpretations of the Constitution’s meaning, and to deprive courts of jurisdiction to review those interpretations. It is, in effect, a power to limit, or to qualify, judicial supremacy.

Sprigman, Christopher Jon, Jurisdiction Stripping as a Tool for Democratic Reform of the Supreme Court: Written Testimony for The Presidential Commission On The Supreme Court of the United States (August 15, 2021). NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 21-34, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3905354 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3905354