In response to the letter to the editor from Brian Baker on Nov. 27 (“Courts Get Too Big for Their Britches”), it is appropriate to note that our court system is critically important to the rule of law and a functioning democracy.
Baker is upset that lower courts, defined as any court not the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), are consistently ruling against illegal and unlawful executive orders by the Trump Administration. The latest blow to the ego of Donald Trump and his ardent partisans is the injunction striking down an asylum plan that is counter to a law enacted by Congress and signed by the executive.
Trump railed against the 9th Circuit, which has not yet ruled on the judgement of District U.S. Judge Jon S. Tigar in this case. Trump is on very thin ice, legally, if an appeal is elevated to higher courts.
What seems to anger this president is that a majority of the court decisions on his policies have gone against him, and he is a notoriously sore loser.
It is very unsettling that extreme partisans like Baker are defending the president in his attack on the judiciary. They are inclined to believe that he was elected to be an authoritarian leader, just like the world leaders that he most admires (Putin; Kim Jong Un, etc.).
Even the conservative chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, had to lecture Trump on the importance of an independent judiciary. How embarrassing.
There it is, Brian Baker. A co-equal branch of our government had to remind the president that he is not our Dear Leader.
The U.S. Constitution is still intact, despite repeated attacks by our president.
Thomas Oatway
Valencia