The Fight to Curb Judicial Overreach
A radical proposal to strip Washington courts of the power to declare state laws unconstitutional sparks a fierce debate in the legislature.
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Representative J. E. Campbell introduced a bill in the state legislature providing that courts should not have the power to set aside laws duly enacted by the legislature. He argued that the will of the people, expressed through the legislature, should be the supreme law. Campbell cited a disgraceful scandal involving the Great Northern Railway and Supreme Court Justices as evidence that the judicial department had set itself above the people. He noted that in England, courts never presume to exercise authority to set aside acts of Parliament. While the bill failed to pass, Campbell’s minority report challenged the unbridled power of the courts, accusing them of protecting corporate interests over the rights of citizens.
“The unbridled powers now assumed by the various courts, wherein they assume to be responsible to no authority whatever, assuming superiority over the people themselves, the sole source of all authority, has grown to such an extent as to threaten the very foundations of the state.”
Campbell's 1911 critique of 'judge-made law' and the influence of railway money in Washington courts echoes modern-day frustrations regarding the intersection of political power, corporate lobbying, and the democratic legitimacy of judicial review.
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