The Supreme Court is, or should be, what Chief Justice John Roberts rightly called “an umpire.” As he said to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing, “Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them.”

The clear and inherent constraints of the Constitution would, if applied with intellectual honesty, put an end to the expansionist vision of the federal government that is essential to the Left’s program of statism.

The Left cannot abide applying the Constitution as it is written because this would upend its multipronged efforts to reshape American government and society at large. There is, for example, nothing in the Constitution allowing for a federal mandate that all adults purchase health insurance.

The Founders gave their political successors an amendment process so they might alter the text as the latter deemed wise (with, of course, the consent of voters in the states), and even included an amendment of their own (the 10th) clarifying that what is not delegated to the federal government is the province of the states. Why would they bother with these things if they believed the text should be open to continuous, ideological reinterpretation?

These are chilling notions to the liberal ideologues who wish to impose their omni-beneficence on us plebian unwashed. Only a “living, breathing” Constitution affords the room to get around the text’s obvious constrictions. Just so my meaning is sufficiently transparent: A person breathes. A document states.

There is another dimension to this narrative: a willingness by some on the Left to consign to the Supreme Court all power over constitutional interpretation.

Family Research Council Sr. Vice President Rob Schwarzwalder, formerly a presidential appointee in the George W. Bush Administration, previously served on the staffs of Members of Congress who held posts on the Senate and House Armed Services Committees.
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