Yesterday, a Florida appeals court refused to block Judge Greer's order that requires Terri Schiavo's feeding tube to be removed at 1:00 pm tomorrow. The U.S. House late on Wednesday approved a bill that would give federal courts the power to hear the case of a brain-damaged Florida woman whose feeding tube is scheduled to be removed on Friday. The Senate must now take up the measure quickly. At this moment, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has just introduced a private bill, to save Terri's life. It must go through by unanimous consent. It it does, the House will remain in session to finalize the vote. At this moment, some democratic senators are raising objections. Senators Frist and Rick Santorum are on the Senate floor trying to work out the matter. Time is of the essence to call your U.S. Senator. The Capitol Switchboard is 202-224-3121.

Moments ago, the Florida House approved a bill to keep Terri alive by a vote of 78-37. A vote by the Florida Senate may occur later today. These bills apply to anyone in a so-called "persistent vegetative state" with no written end-of-life directive. The Florida legislative number is 800-342-1827 and Governor Jeb Bush is 850-488-4441.

Judicial Activism Upsets the Balance of Power and Fosters Government by the Few

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was correct when he commented in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center that when judges are concerned with promoting their "personal policy preferences" rather than interpreting the law, "we have rendered the Constitution useless."

In my book, Judicial Tyranny, I discuss the views of the judiciary held by James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson warned that the "germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the [composition] of the federal judiciary … working like gravity by night and day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief with a field of jurisdiction until all shall be usurped." Jefferson also said that "to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy." He also cautioned that, "Independence can be trusted no where but with the people in mass."

Under the Constitution, Hamilton described the judiciary as the "weakest of the three departments of power." Madison said that the judiciary must "have the confidence of the people. This will soon be lost if they are employed in the task of remonstrating against popular measures of the legislature." He warned that the "accumulation of all powers" in one branch of government "may justly be pronounced the very same definition of tyranny."

When judges act like legislators imposing their personal political preferences from the bench then the constitutional text is meaningless and the rule of law is undermined. This week's ruling in San Francisco striking down California's marriage laws, including the statewide legislative voter initiative, Prop 22, is an example of the judiciary overstepping its authority. To rule that there is no conceivable rationale for marriage as one man and one woman is beyond belief.

In the recent Supreme Court decision of Roper vs. Simmons, five Justices ruled that the juvenile death penalty is unconstitutional. The Court relied on the "trend" since 1989 that seven countries (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen, Nigeria, Congo, and China) have banned the death penalty for juveniles. This reliance on international law is clearly selective. Under Iranian law, proselytizing is considered a capital offense. Surely, we should not use foreign law to "interpret" our Constitution.

We fought a Revolution in order to gain independence, and we crafted a Constitution committed to a republican form of government where the power resides in the people, the American people.