Petition for Redress of Grievances

Arguments and disagreements are an inevitable part of human society. Disputes are usually settled according to written laws or accepted societal customs. An impartial and fair system of justice is required to maintain interpersonal harmony and avoid violent conflict. Citizens expect their community and elected officials to function as wise mediators and brokers of justice.

Americans, as a rule, believe that some form of retribution is due an aggrieved party as a matter of fairness and expect the judicial system to provide a proper resolution. If satisfactory justice is not provided, there is a risk of vigilante vengeance that in some instances can lead to long term feuds and personal injuries. Avoidance of violence is a high priority for law enforcement and judges to maintain peace and promote community harmony.

An example from the Bible is The Judgment of Solomon (1 Kings 3:16 – 28). Solomon, son of King David and Bathsheba, became King at 12 years of age. Both the young king and his subjects were concerned about his ability to act wisely. Two women who lived together had each given birth to a baby boy around the same time. One woman’s baby died. She swapped infants at night, keeping the living child as her own. The two women came before the king both claiming ownership of the baby. In the absence of witnesses, it was a challenging decision. King Solomon offered to cut the baby in two and give half to each claimant. One woman readily agreed, but the other begged the king to save life of the child. King Solomon wisely recognized her as the mother.

The wisdom of King Solomon is a difficult standard for the judges of today to emulate. They claim that the complexity of society and the severity of crimes precludes rendering simple verdicts. Unfortunately, decisions are too-often driven more by the personal and political agendas of judges rather than written law, common sense, or even human decency.

When routine justice fails or is unavailable, what recourse is available to people and local governments?

A legal remedy appears in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” was part of the Magna Carta, agreed to by King John and the British nobility in 1215, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

In the Declaration of Independence, the necessity for dissolving “the Political Bands which have connected them with another” was justified by King George deliberately ignoring the multiple petitions of the colonists to redress their grievances against the British monarch.

In the early years of our Republic, petitions from the general public were routinely heard by state legislatures and Congress to resolve many issues that clearly fell into the unlimited “redress of grievances” category. It was not uncommon for Congress to hear and rule on petitions not only from citizens, but from slaves, women, and non-citizens. In responding to petitions from the people, elected officials are forced to consider the interests of their constituents at least on an equal footing with their own personal agendas.

The right to sue government entities, i.e., “standing”, has been the subject of numerous Supreme Court decisions since the ratification of the Constitution. One of the first in 1793, Chisholm vs Georgia, affirmed the rights of federal courts to hear disputes between private citizens and states. That issue, however, has been modified numerous times in subsequent SCOTUS decisions mostly to make standing to sue government entities more difficult. Even in more recent rulings that enlarged the scope of Free Speech, the Supreme Court has unfortunately also limited the rights of citizens and states to petition for a “redress of grievances”.

Sadly, two hundred years of SCOTUS cases have created a maze of legal rules that make it extremely difficult for people and states to file suit to force the federal government to pay for its harmful decisions. Most of those decisions are based on the words and the personal agendas of a single justice who was able to persuade a majority of the court. Those decisions sometimes defy logic and even contravene the written words of the Constitution, yet they still stand unchallenged and limit our First Amendment rights.

As a textualist, I vigorously dispute the right of the judiciary or of any branch of government to illegally amend the Constitution by limiting the people’s use of this critically important constitutional right. In current times, we live in a Tyranny of the Bureaucracy. Agents of the “alphabet agencies” of the federal government have become legislators, law enforcement, judges, and juries imposing unconstitutional regulations and punishments on the American people. Because they are unelected and unsupervised adequately by Congress, the people cannot easily seek amends for these illegal actions. The right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, clearly part of the First Amendment, is a critically important to preserving our Natural Law Rights the Constitution is supposed to secure and guarantee to each of us.

Resist Tyranny!

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Dr. Dan’s guest on Freedom Forum Radio this weekend is Bob Levy, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Cato Institute.  Bob has been a frequent guest on Freedom Forum Radio sharing his expertise on the U.S. Constitution and its practical application in law and government.

Dr. Dan and Bob Levy will be discussing nullification, interposition, secession, and who has standing to sue the government for redress of grievances, a complex issue involving sovereign immunity, qualified immunity, previous SCOTUS cases, and the 11th Amendment.

Episode #1 of this four-part interview begins this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, January 4-5, on WJRB 95.1 FM and streamed live over the Internet.

Episode #2: Saturday-Sunday January 11-12
Episode #3: Saturday-Sunday January 18-19
Episode #4: Saturday-Sunday January 25-26

Air Times:
Saturday 8:00 AM and 9:30 AM
Sunday 2:30 PM and 7:00 PM

All programs are available by podcast following air time here.

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About Bob Levy

Bob Levy joined Cato as senior fellow in constitutional studies in 1997 after 25 years in business. In 1966, Levy founded CDA Investment Technologies, a major provider of investment information and software and served as CEO until 1991.

He then attended George Mason School of Law, where he was chief articles editor of the law review and class valedictorian. Levy received his JD in 1994. The next two years he clerked for Judge Royce C. Lamberth on the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and for Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. From 1997 until 2004 Levy was an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University.

His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, National Review, and many other publications. Levy has also discussed public policy on national radio and TV programs, including ABC’s Nightline, Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor, PBS’s Newshour, and NBC’s Today Show.

His latest book is The Dirty Dozen: How 12 Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom.

Levy served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the successful Supreme Court challenge to Washington, D.C.’s, gun ban.