Of course it would be better if we did not have to do something like this. It would be better if Congress and presidents had used their constitutional appointment and impeachment powers to make clear that judges were expected merely to judge (a hard enough job). It would be better if Congress had used its constitutional control over the judiciary’s jurisdiction to minimize the opportunities for judicial imperialism.

But they have not. Thus, as reformer types like to say, the system is broken. Cruz did not break it; the justices did, with lots of help. Cruz is trying to fix it: proposing a political check to pressure a politicized institution into reverting to the Court Will is nostalgic for — the nonpolitical branch that fortifies limited government.

Conservatives, it should be stressed, are not asking for a Supreme Court that imposes our vision of marriage and market-based health care, or that excuses discrimination when it actually occurs. We are asking for a Supreme Court that upholds the constitutional framework of divided government; that assigns law- and policy-making to the people’s representatives at the state or federal level, depending on the subject matter; and that upholds the liberty guarantees that are actually in the Constitution, rather than degrading them in an arrogant exploration of “existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”