Opinion

The people know what laws mean. The Supreme Court shouldn’t try to rewrite them.

There’s a lot to like about the 1793 Supreme Court case Chisholm v. Georgia. One attraction is that it was argued on February 5 of that year and decided on February 18. Bravo, court of long ago. We could use some of that pacing these days.

The real glory of the decision, however, is in its aftermath. The response to the case proved that the legislators enacting laws — whether a Constitution, an amendment thereto or a simple statute — and the people living under them, know very well what those laws mean when they are passed after a deliberative, open process. (This excludes Obamacare and most of this era’s giant bills, which are intentionally unreadable.) When Congress acts with clarity, everyone knows what it has done.