Foreign Policy In Focus: Too Little Too Late

Too Little Too Late: The Supreme Court as a Check on Executive Power
By Lisa L. Miller

Many citizens look back over the 20th century and see the Supreme Court championing individual freedoms and standing in the way of government abuse of power. Under the Bush administration, foreign policy issues such as warrantless wiretaps, the rights of enemy combatants, and interrogation methods have become the latest topics in the longstanding debate over the limits of executive branch power and the role of the judiciary in enforcing those limits. The issue recently took center stage when Senate Democrats expressed concern at the confirmation hearings of Samuel Alito, President Bush's most recent pick for the Supreme Court, that Alito would support greater judicial deference to executive authority.

Citizens as well as Democrats in Congress who look to a Republican president to appoint a Supreme Court justice willing to buck tradition and limit executive power in any substantial way are barking up the wrong tree. If executives are to be reigned in, Congress is going to have to get off its duff and fulfill its constitutional mandate all on its own.

Lisa L. Miller is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org).

See full FPIF article online at:
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3117

With printer-friendly pdf version at:
http://fpif.org/pdf/gac/0602supreme.pdf