Eleven years after the Supreme Court redefined marriage, the robed kings are now attempting to redefine American citizenship.

Notice that I said “are attempting,” not “have redefined.”

‘Whenever a free people should give up in absolute submission to any department of government, retaining for themselves no appeal from it, their liberties were gone.’

Court orders are not self-executing. Nor are they universally binding on the coordinate branches that wield the powers of execution and appropriation. The ruling need not determine how those branches treat future cases.

The Republican response has nevertheless been underwhelming and devoid of urgency — much as it was when the party folded on marriage in 2015.

This time, the stakes are higher. If Republicans respond with the same passivity, we may not have a country left to conserve.

Republicans were apparently so outraged by the ruling that they went on recess for two weeks rather than use the July Fourth period to reassert citizenship by consent of the governed.

Many now insist the only remedy is a constitutional amendment, knowing it would never come close to ratification.

That response accepts the premise that Congress may exercise its powers only within the political rule announced by the court in a case brought by individual plaintiffs.

Conservatives must understand that they cannot comply their way out of judicial usurpation. The political branches must exercise their own constitutional judgment.

Courts do not possess a veto over Congress

Here is the central point Republicans are missing: Courts can decide individual cases. They can affirm, reverse, or vacate judgments.

They do not issue passports, birth certificates, Social Security cards, or citizenship documents to future children born on American soil.

Children already granted citizenship under the prevailing interpretation present a different question. The immediate issue concerns future births.

President Trump should use the veto pen and budget process to prevent the political result the left sought through the court.

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Congress’ first priority should be a reconciliation bill prohibiting funds for the State Department, Department of Health and Human Services, Social Security Administration, or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to issue citizenship documents to children born to illegal aliens or birth tourists.

Some will call that “defiance” of the Supreme Court.

Last I checked, the Supreme Court does not issue birth certificates. It does not appropriate money for them, either.

Even under a strong theory of judicial supremacy, courts may invalidate a positive action by another branch, such as imposing punishment under an unconstitutional law.

But when a court demands that Congress fund and the executive administer a citizenship regime, the political branches retain the right and obligation to interpret the Constitution for themselves.

Abraham Lincoln made this distinction during his sixth debate with Stephen Douglas.

While acknowledging that courts decide individual cases, Lincoln rejected the notion that a judicial opinion automatically becomes a political rule binding Congress and the president in every future controversy.

“We nevertheless do oppose that decision as a political rule,” Lincoln said in Quincy, Illinois, in 1858, “... which shall be binding on the members of Congress or the President to favor no measure that does not actually concur with the principles of that decision.”

James Madison expressed a similar understanding in his second “Helvidius” essay, describing “a concurrent right to expound the Constitution.”

The branches were designed to check one another, not submit automatically to judicial command.

Use power of the purse

Congress should do more than defund citizenship documents for the children of illegal aliens and birth tourists. It should also restrict jurisdiction and funding for federal cases brought to compel their issuance.

Congress possesses broad authority over the jurisdiction, structure, and funding of the lower federal courts. It also controls judicial appropriations.

That power is not theoretical. Supreme Court justices routinely appear before congressional appropriators to seek funding.

Congress may therefore restrict funds for proceedings intended to force the executive branch to issue citizenship documents contrary to congressional policy.

Such provisions would have an obvious budgetary effect and could be included in reconciliation. Congress could prohibit spending both on the documents and on litigation seeking to compel them.

The same legislation should defund:

• the diversity visa lottery;
• grants to sanctuary jurisdictions and states issuing commercial driver’s licenses to illegal aliens;
• Census Bureau operations used to count illegal aliens for apportionment;
• visas prohibited by presidential orders but revived through lower-court injunctions.

Republican leaders will hide behind the Byrd rule, which excludes provisions deemed extraneous to the budget. But Republicans found ways around it when extending tax cuts, even where provisions increased the deficit.

These immigration restrictions would reduce federal spending.

Where there is political will, there is a procedural way.

RELATED: The founders gave us the remedy for rogue state judges: Impeach

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Confront judicial supremacy now

Eventually, however, the political branches must simply be prepared to say no to judicial usurpation.

The left will always find a judge willing to declare even jurisdiction stripping or spending restrictions unconstitutional.

That is why judicial supremacy must be confronted directly.

Many assume that because no formal veto exists over a Supreme Court decision, the court must possess final authority. The opposite is closer to the constitutional design.

No special veto was needed because the judiciary possessed neither purse nor sword. Courts depended on the other branches to execute their judgments.

Alexander Hamilton described the judiciary as possessing “neither force nor will, but merely judgment.”

Every Republican serious about reclaiming American sovereignty must reach the same conclusion: Judicial supremacy cannot be evaded indefinitely. It must be confronted head-on.

Consider the favored Republican response to the citizenship ruling: Accelerate mass deportations so illegal aliens cannot give birth here. Some lawmakers have also floated restrictions on pregnant foreign visitors.

Those policies are necessary. But the irony should be obvious. The same judges who distorted citizenship law will interfere with every serious immigration-enforcement measure.

Why has the administration struggled to achieve mass deportation? Because federal courts continue to enjoin policies involving ICE arrests, detention, removal, benefits, and visa restrictions. Even policies already upheld by the Supreme Court remain targets.

In Trump v. Hawaii, the court recognized the president’s broad authority to restrict entry from designated countries. Yet lower-court judges continue to obstruct portions of later restrictions.

The same problem will arise when the administration tries to stop counting illegal aliens in the census.

RELATED: Trump’s mass-deportation promise needs receipts

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If Republicans accept judicial supremacy without resistance, judges will almost certainly hold that the 14th Amendment requires every person, regardless of legal status, to be counted for representation.

That argument may even be textually stronger than the claim that every child born to an illegal alien must receive citizenship.

The deeper issue is sovereignty. If Republicans emerge from the final Trump governing trifecta without correcting stolen citizenship, illegal representation, and judicial sabotage of immigration enforcement, the party will have betrayed the promise that launched Trump’s political career 11 years ago.

At that point, another convention and another round of slogans will mean nothing.

Lincoln, citing Jefferson during his fifth debate with Douglas, warned what happens when a free people submit absolutely to any branch of government: “Whenever a free people should give up in absolute submission to any department of government, retaining for themselves no appeal from it, their liberties were gone.”

That is the choice before Congress. Submit to judicial supremacy or use the powers the Constitution still gives the political branches.

The Supreme Court has spoken. Congress does not have to surrender.