Letters to the Editor

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun
NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

Klein Seeks to Lift the Limit on New Charters


Here’s a multiple-choice question for charter school agnostics/opponents [“Klein Is Seeking to Lift the Limit on New Charters,” Julia Levy, Page 1, October 4, 2004]: Howard Stern’s move to satellite radio is to the Federal Communications Commission as choice-empowered parents will be to:


(A) Teachers’ unions.
(B) The legislators, judges, and bureaucrats these unions have significant influence over.
(C) The thoroughly discredited teaching methods these unions continue to embrace.
(D) The social engineering being done at the expense of the three Rs and the American sense of life.
(E) All of the above.


The answer is: (E) All of the above.


A clever idea will enable Mr. Stern to simply bypass the arbitrary, potentially destructive, rights-defying practices of the FCC. If Mr. Stern establishes satellite radio as a viable alternative, and he probably will, the broadcast industry will grow beyond all recognition.


Charters allow parents to bypass many of the entities and practices that have the mightiest nation on Earth graduating students with lower academic abilities than those required by the public school systems of many emerging nations.


How do we maximize the benefits of sidestepping the entrenched, offer them to all, and do so in the fastest way possible while keeping costs under control? By bringing in, and diligently keeping the road clear for, key laissez-faire mechanisms: vouchers.


JOHN HARALABOPOULOS
Bayside N.Y.



‘Calling Mr. Marshall’


As an attorney with an interest in constitutional law, I must correct the popular misconception of Marbury v. Madison as expressed in The New York Sun’s editorial, “Calling Mr. Marshall” [September 24, 2004].


Marbury concerned the power of Congress to confer or restrict the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction as explicitly conferred in the Constitution. The case did not address Congress’s power to restrict the court’s appellate jurisdiction, the basis upon which it hears the vast majority of its cases, specifically the “Pledge” cases. Indeed, Marbury implicitly reaffirms the power of Congress to restrict such appellate jurisdiction:


“If the solicitude of the convention, respecting our peace with foreign powers, induced a provision that the supreme court should take original jurisdiction in cases which might be supposed to affect them; yet the clause would have proceeded no further than to provide for such cases, if no further restriction on the powers of congress had been intended. That they should have appellate jurisdiction in all other cases, with such exceptions as congress might make, is no restriction; unless the words be deemed exclusive of original jurisdiction.”


The Marbury court further expressed its opinion about those who would simply ignore parts of the Constitution that might be considered inconvenient: “It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect; and, therefore, such a construction is inadmissible.”


The ability of Congress to restrict the courts is as essential to our system of checks and balances as is the ability of the Supreme Court to overturn bad laws passed by Congress. The fact that Congress has refrained from using this constitutionally granted power for most of our history in no way refutes its importance.


Alexander Hamilton himself expressly recognized the importance of this power while addressing the public’s fears over the federal judiciary’s effect on the institution of trial-by-jury:


“The Supreme Court shall possess appellate jurisdiction both as to law and fact, and that this jurisdiction shall be subject to such exceptions and regulations as the national legislature may prescribe. This will enable the government to modify it in such a manner as will best answer the ends of public justice and security.” (Federalist No. 81)


Absent such a check on its power, the Supreme Court can – and, many would argue, already has – become an instrument of totalitarianism; nine unelected government officials imposing their will on the entire nation.


It is certainly debatable whether the Pledge of Allegiance is an issue worthy of such an extreme measure by Congress, but in my view, it is high time that Congress and the Supreme Court remember that America is meant to be primarily a democracy, not an oligarchy.


The will of the people, expressed by our elected representatives, should be accorded the utmost respect by all branches of our government.


ADRIENNE SCHOLZ
Brooklyn



Please address letters intended for publication to the Editor of The New York Sun. Letters may be sent by e-mail to editor@nysun.com, facsimile to 212-608-7348, or post to 105 Chambers Street, New York City 10007.Please include a return address and daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited.

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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