I had the opportunity to interview former presidential candidate Alan Keyes at his home in Maryland for an hour or two yesterday. What a brilliant, passionate man this is.

Keyes has been deeply, tirelessly involved in the Alabama Ten Commandments situation (I watched him do probably five telephone interviews during the time we were setting up the TV equipment in his sitting room), and has written the best popular-level treatise on the matter that I've seen yet. The important point that only he (as far as I know) is bringing out is that there is a constitutional remedy for a runaway judiciary, and we've come to the time when it needs to be put into action.

Ambassador Keyes told me that he believes the war will never be won on the battlefield of judicial nominations; we're long past that point. He also rejects as an unnecessary redundancy a constitutional amendment (as some have called for), saying, "The Constitution already speaks clearly on the matter." Instead, it is time for Congress to act. As he points out in the WorldNetDaily piece:

...the U.S. Constitution, after enumerating certain cases over which the federal judiciary would have original jurisdiction, gave it appellate jurisdiction "with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." Therefore, the federal courts are not the ultimate judges of the boundaries of their own power. Final responsibility in this respect rests with the Congress.

Congress has the explicit, constitutional right to circumscribe the jurisdiction of the federal courts. We're not without a remedy for a runaway judiciary. Says Keyes:

The Congress must pass legislation that, in order to assure proper respect for the first clause of the First Amendment, excepts from the appellate jurisdiction of the federal courts those matters which, by the conjoint effect of the First and 10th Amendments, the Constitution reserves to the states respectively and to the people...This legislation would restore observance of the Constitution by preventing the federal courts from addressing any issues related to religious establishment (as the First Amendment requires), while leaving them free to deal with cases involving the free exercise of religion by individuals, since these do not fall under constitutional ban on federal legislation. In this regard, the only state actions that come under federal jurisdiction are those involving coercive interference with individual choice in matters of religion. State action that involves no such individual coercion (such as the placement of a Ten Commandments monument in the rotunda of a state Supreme Court building) is outside the purview of the federal courts. (Emphasis original)

I told Dr. Keyes that it seemed unlikely that Congress would act unless they saw major public sentiment (read: votes) involved. They are, after all, political animals. "I think that poll last week showing 77% of Americans agreeing with Justice Moore will have piqued the interest of a number of them," he pointed out, smiling. There are votes--lots of them--to be had here.

There are only a handful of Americans who have the intellectual firepower, public notoriety, and rhetorical skill to articulate important issues from a passionate, Christian, constitutional perspective. Ambassador Keyes is one of them. Americans should listen to this man.