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Newt Gingrich, the self-described Republican "ideas man," has turned his big ideas guns to the federal courts this week — and even conservatives think he is taking things way too far. As he tries to shore up his slipping support among Republican primary voters, Gingrich has ramped up his assault on "activist federal judges," a favorite target of social conservatives.
And the more noise the political establishment makes about an "independent" judiciary, the more Gingrich has turned up the volume, attacking the U.S. court system as "despotic" and "grotesquely dictatorial."
Now, Gingrich says that, if elected president, he would be free to ignore the Supreme Court and abolish entire federal court systems if he disagrees with their rulings (that means you, 9th Circuit). Under Newt's reign, judges could be impeached, subpoenaed, and even arrested by U.S. Marshals if their rulings were deemed "anti-American" by the Gingrich administration.
Of course, in Gingrich's view, "anti-American" includes anything that doesn't jibe with his "Judeo-Christian" vision of America. The campaign outlined this vision yesterday in a 20-page proposal for a Presidential Commission On Religious Freedom, which President Gingrich would establish by Executive Order on his first day in office. If that document is any indication, any judge who disagrees with Gingrich on anything from school prayer to contraception to discrimination against homosexuals could end up in the slammer.
As with all of his ideas, Gingrich has an extensive and thoroughly researched argument for why ignoring court decisions and arresting federal judges is actually perfectly fine. In a new position paper, "Bringing The Courts Back Under The Constitution," Gingrich writes that the Founding Fathers — notably Jefferson — did not see the Supreme Court as the final word on the Constitution. The concept of judicial supremacy, Gingrich argues, was actually born with the Supreme Court's 1958 Cooper vs. Aaron decision.
That decision, which Gingrich calls a "power grab," forced Arkansas officials to finally start desegregating schools. So you see the problem here.
Social politics aside, Gingrich's ideas about the federal judiciary are totally unconstitutional, not to mention ludicrous and potentially terrifying. Basically, Gingrich is suggesting we adopt the Hugo Chavez model of jurisprudence.
Former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey actually puts it best:
“It would lead us to become a banana republic, in which administrations would become regimes, and each regime would feel it perfectly appropriate to disregard decisions of courts staffed by previous regimes,”  Mukasey told the New York Times.  “That’s not what we are.”

Now here are 11 other crazy ideas from Newt Gingrich >