In a WSJ op-ed, John Yoo argues that Congress sent a message to the Supreme Court with the passage of the Military Commissions Act: Mind your own business and leave the war on terror alone. In this regard, Yoo argues, the law was, above all else, a “stinging rebuke” to the Supreme Court, particularly insofar as it limited federal court jurisdiction over certain claims. “In the struggle for power between the three branches of government, it is not the presidency that ‘won.’ Instead, it is the judiciary that lost.”
Marty Lederman comments on the Yoo op-ed here. Among other things, Lederman notes:
John unabashedly celebrates [the legislation’s court-stripping provisions]. But he doesn’t give much of a justification for it, except that he does not like the idea of the courts reviewing the legality of the Executive’s actions in wartime. There is a certain irony in this, given the source: This is, after all, the lawyer who has most aggressively promoted the view that notwithstanding all of its war-related article I powers, Congress is entirely disabled from regulating the Executive’s wartime decisions. And yet he not only thinks that Congress can strip the courts of their constitutional functions in wartime — he positively revels in it.
Both the Yoo article and Lederman commentary are must reads for those interested in this subject.
More commentary from Ann Althouse here.