I miss him every time. I don't think he writes any decisions...he's not in the press....he just does his job. I'm not even sure if he's a liberal or a conservative judge. I think he's a liberal judge since he's a Clinton appointee, but I have no idea on what his actual jurisprudence is like.
After the shambles of the 2018 confirmation, there's good reason to consider term limits on Supreme Court justices. They have become so politicised. Lifetime appointments cast such a biasing shadow on US politics regardless of which party is in control of the presidency, senate and house.
I've been interested a lot in the current political situation (especially the Midterms) in the US. I honestly think that the cultural division between Democrats and Republicans is getting bigger and bigger. Furthermore, I think that many politicians take "party over country". Maybe for SCOTUS not only term limits, but also minimum amount of senators (like 60 voting in favour). I clearly see that a two-party-system is not working in this case.
If we go back to the 60 vote requirement for confirmation, we’ll probably not get another justice confirmed in my lifetime (of course assuming that neither party gets more than than 60 Senate seats). The Dems will never forgive the Repubs for what they did to Garland and the Republicans will never forgive the Dems for what they did to Kavanaugh. A plague on both their houses as far as I am concerned. Term limits maybe.
Agreed. We need a constitutional amendment to change how people are appointed to the Supreme Court. One good suggestion I have heard is that each President would appoint one justice every 2 years. Adding an 18 year term limit would keep the size of the court at 9 members. Senatorial confirmation should probably just be scrapped.
Yeah...I've heard this before as well. I like it. One of the big problems is that we've allowed the courts to become too powerful. Both Madison and Hamilton in the Federalist Papers talked about the judicial branch as being the smallest and least powerful of the 3 branches, but now it's on par with the executive branch and both have left the legislative branch in the dust. Personally, I want 535 people that represent my voting interests making laws. Not 9 unelected life appointees.
to buck: as awful and political (and biased way too much toward one party through questionable means) as the Supreme Court has become... I still trust them more than I trust Congress. The justices are not spending 90% of their time fundraising and so completely beholden to their party and their corporate donors. Also, Congress does make laws. The Supreme Court rules on how those laws should be interpreted and whether or not they are Constitutional. This isn't the same thing. People who complain about judges legislating from the bench usually are just upset that they aren't allowed to get away with passing any un-Constitutional law that they see fit.
and my comment here about how Senate confirmation serves a valuable function and should be fixed and de-politicized but not scrapped was also deleted? WHHHHYYYYYYY??? Because I disagreed with you? Constitutional checks and balances are considered too inflammatory now?
Congress is by far the most powerful branch. It's just that they spend so much time and energy infighting and generally tearing dignity to shreds that people don't realize their immense power. If they ever prioritized actually getting stuff done, they could accomplish far more than the executive or judiciary. They control the money and they write the laws.
There have been many good ideas floating around out there to de-politicize the Supreme Court. One that I like is packing the court to extreme levels - make it not 9, 10, or 12 justices, but rather 30 or 60 or 100. Some lower courts have that many. Then, theoretically, decisions would not depend on one or two swing votes, but be more of a consensus thing. I actually think term limits could have the opposite effect, as, if a justice has to be thinking forward to his career AFTER serving on the Supreme Court there might be more pressure to decide cases a certain way. If he knows that he's going to die doing this job, he should, theoretically, be more free to vote his conscience.
But yes, the current condition of the court is shameful. Presidents appoint justices. Republicans have won the popular vote for president ONCE in the past 32 years. And yet 6 out of 9 justices have been appointed by Republican presidents.
I think the Senate demonstrates very clearly that having 100 members makes no difference at all. Pretty much all decisions are made along party lines, with a handful of ‘swing votes’ deciding most matters, e.g. Collins, Romney, Synema etc. Quizmaster’s idea seems more sound and far more feasible. Although what needs to change is the culture, in which one side says anything and the other automatically disagrees. American politics seems to be conducted like Europeans conduct our football rivalries. I, for example, will always disagree with a Tottenham Hotspur fan on pretty much anything. But I will at least consider the different arguments put forward by politicians, even if my natural inclination is against them.
Including the last three which include one shameless raging conspiracy-minded partisan and probable rapist, one former Handmaid of a backward religious cult, and Gorsuch who sits in the seat stolen from Merrick Garland.
if any of the comments I left yesterday were going to get deleted I assumed it would be this one. Not the 4 or 5 others which were making much better points. There was no good reason to delete any of those.
In New Zealand, Supreme Court justices they are not voted into office by partisan votes of the legislature, but simply appointed to the court in a non-political way. The mandatory age of retirement is 70. Additionally, there is acceptance of the paramountcy of the legislature; thus the Court never seeks to "strike down" laws. Instead, they simply interpret and apply the law as it stands.
Though... it's worth pointing out that even with all those essentially non-partisan justice confirmations to the court prior to the year 2000, the court made one of its most shamelessly partisan judgments that very year in Bush v Gore. The Republican-appointed justices who voted to stop the ballot counting in Florida, effectively handing the presidency to Bush that year, even wrote that their decision should only ever apply to that one single instance. In a judicial system that relies on precedent as the American system does, this is remarkable. They were basically admitting that they were ruling for partisan reasons and warning that the same logic and interpretation of the law should never influence other cases, because they knew what a bad precedent it would set.
and my comment above this makes no sense anymore as it was a follow-up to what I had just posted before it... about how justices used to get confirmed 99-0 when they weren't controversial or unqualified. And how this only changed since the year 2000 when a combination of Fox News, Karl Rove, George W Bush, the repeal of the fairness doctrine, the Internet, Facebook etc made everything much more polarized and political... W. T. H.
Fox is the most centrist? Sorry, I just can't see that at all. I think Fox and MSNBC are the two ends of the spectrum as far as mainstream cable news goes. Maybe if you're far-right then Fox might feel like the center subjectively (in the same way that MSNBC feels super-moderate to me, a far-leftist), but objectively (keeping the current Overton window in mind), there are left-leaning outlets like ABC that land closer to the center than Fox.
As someone who is right of center myself, here's the problem with Fox (it's the same problem with CNN). The actual news programming is fine. On both fronts. I listen to some of the Fox morning shows on the radio and it's maybe slightly right of center but not too bad. THEN, they have Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity on in the evenings. And that's where Fox gets its bad rap. Same with CNN. Their news programming is fine, but then they have the Don Lemon show and before he was let go, Chris Cuomo. So both of those organizations NEWS programming should be considered much closer to center, but their excrible opinion shows are what drag the networks down in my opinion.
and my comment about how supreme court justice confirmation used to be relatively a-political got deleted as well??? Seriously... what the friggin hell?? What was offensive about that comment????? I usually don't mind some of my comments getting deleted I can sort of see the logic behind getting rid of some of them but this makes NO sense. Kinda pissed off now.
I feel like "RBG" should probably be an accepted answer, since that's come to be a common way of referring to her (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBG_(film)).
Or in the case of one particular user, insert about 40 highly opinionated comments and then attack anyone who disagrees, making sure to insult their intelligence where possible.
That comment about the first justice retiring is no longer accurate (though it very well may be true again soon), I imagine it's an accidental carryover from a previous version
pretty much stealing, yes. When you haven't won a popular vote but once in 32 years, and you've got a 6-3 majority, you are clearly not playing by the rules.
We know the rules. It's still upsetting to watch such odious and hypocritical behavior. It should embarrass you too. Ideological differences are fine, but you should not excuse unprincipled behavior by your government just because it favors your side. Lindsey Graham needs to be blasted into the sun.
Why? Although Dems and Reps have both been hypocrites on this notion of getting justices on the Court during an election year, that's not Barrett's fault. And although I personally disagree with some of what appear to be her personal stances (if the media are to be believed), she is well qualified for the Court.
To me, it's always been a good idea to study some ideas - (1) expanding the Court and then selecting randomly a subset to hear any given case (which is the way that the Circuit Courts usually operate) in order to cut down on the importance of any single judge or (2) having term limits so each President gets to have 1 or 2 appointments. Or something else to get out of this morass of the Court zinging one way or the other depending on how many appointments any single President has and the two parties always voting against the other parties' nominees regardless of qualifications and credentials.
I never thought the day would come when the Democrats started vilifying a Female, Catholic, extremely well-accomplished justice who adopted two Haitian children. The nomination process? Sure. The nominator? Of course. But I never thought that they would stoop to that level.
Barrett should not have been confirmed for many reasons other than the outrageous hypocrisy and outright lies and rushing to confirmation thing. She's just not fit to sit on the Supreme Court. Though she is better than Kavanaugh.
If Barrett is not qualified to be on the Court because of what are perceived on her personal views (rated well qualified by the ABA, but what the hell do they know), then neither is Sotomayor or Alito. Gorsuch and Kagan are examples of what may appear to be partisan judges, but, unlike the above, they have superior intellects (Scalia of all people pushed for Kagan even though they probably often disagreed) and can construct legal arguments in support of their views. Alito and Sotomayor are partisan political hacks. If you're going to call out justices, then do it consistently regardless of political view.
Alito made it his business to prove your point with his preposterous little tantrum this week. I agree that Kagan and Gorsuch, along with Chief Justice Roberts, are the intellectual heavyweights on the court (Scalia and Ginsburg were their peers in this respect). I don't like Breyer's writing, but I generally find his reasoning to be sound. Thomas is awful in pretty much every respect. Bad writing, bad reasoning, absent during oral argument. He just reflexively takes the most conservative position on pretty much every issue. It's dispiriting to see a justice who engages so little with the cases before him.
With only 9 names, I would think that 2 minutes would be plenty. Don't you? (You can add the time back later if 4 additional justices are added next year. :) )
If the court is packed, the quiz will be deleted. It's simply too depressing. It creates an unstable equilibrium that can only be resolved when every American citizen becomes a member of the Supreme Court. The Constitution should be amended to specify nine justices, an 18 year term, and the President can nominate whoever they want without the Senate. I'm not holding my breath.
yes, because the Dems will make it 13 if they get elected, so it will be 7-6 in their favor, then when the republicans get elected, they'll increase it to 15, then 17, 19,21 so on
That would be completely ridiculous, that a single politician can choose a random lawyer to decide about the country. There are plenty of better systems around the world.
and my comment here deleted as well... why? Because I said that the argument that court packing sets a bad precedent is dumb? It is dumb. So is this page's moderation...
To briefly reiterate what I said yesterday: the number of justices on the court has fluctuated multiple times. There's nothing at all depressing about the idea of court packing and the Democrats absolutely should do it if they can. If Republicans can reduce the number of seats on the USC to 8 for 2015-2016 then Dems should be able to increase it to 13. And as for this setting a bad precedent, this argument is invalid for multiple reasons. 1. Republicans do not care about precedent. At all. They've demonstrated this over and over again the last 4 years especially. 2. The precedent was already set in the past. The USC has had as few as five justices and as many as ten. It's been expanded and shrunk before and it never led to every American being a justice. 3. The court has already been packed with partisan and unqualified justices through highly questionable probably unconstitutional parliamentary tricks and undemocratic practices. Further packing would help fix something already broken.
I'm struggling with your volume of comments lately @Kal. We tolerate things from you that would easily earn a ban for any other user. I'm not sure this policy is working. I don't want to spend my time moderating political debate. If anything we are likely to become less tolerant on this front.
If the comment above that you made yourself is fine, the comment I made in response to it was fine. There was no discernible difference between them and you're being inconsistent and hypocritical. If you feel this deserves a ban... well that's up to you. I'm not participating in the conversation to create more work for you.
I need to defend my favorite branch of government here: the spurious process by which justices are appointed is no reflection of the justices themselves, who work hard to apply the law correctly. There is a perception of partisanship because the most contested cases, which usually go 5-4, get all the attention. But 9-0 is actually the most common decision, and more than 50% of cases go 7-2 or better. They are not as partisan as people think. I also need to speak up for Chief Justice Roberts. He is very protective of the dignity of the court, and while the other two branches have turned into an absolute sideshow, he has worked hard to maintain the court's integrity. I think if Trump's ridiculous election claims end up before the Court, Roberts will line up the troops for a 9-0 or at least 7-2 (can't count on Kavanaugh or Alito) to let it be known he will not let the court stoop to the level of shameless overwhelming the rest of our government.
Agree with jmellor13. Even though I'm relatively liberal and disagree with Roberts on many issues (although less so now that he's a swing vote), he's earned my respect for steering the court system clear of partisanship and dysfunction and preventing one bloc from overwhelming the court.
That being said, I'd still like to see court reform. It's a bit absurd that 9 unelected justices are allowed to have so much power with no term limits. Not saying that the justices should be elected (that would be absolute chaos) or that the court should be packed, but it would be nice if there were term limits. I also wish they didn't have the power to strike down entire laws. It just seems so counter-productive to strike down the whole thing when they can just strike down part of it and explain the issues with said law. I'd like to see it more like New Zealand (based on what Jerry928 described above).
I think the idea of Judiciary term limits (and term limits in general) is one area where you would get universal Democrat/Republican support from the voters. Congress, not so much.
The long answer is that the SCOTUS has gotten pretty far from its original design. Federalist Paper No. 78 written by Alexander Hamilton described the courts as inherently weak. In his mind, the weakest of the three branches of government. Fast forward to today, and because of the massive expansion of executive bureaucracies under FDR, the weakest branch has become the legislative since these bureaucracies are doing much of their work. Executive is still the most powerful but now judicial is second. Furthermore with the more modern interpretation of "executive orders" the executive branch is now relying more heavily on the judiciary to uphold their executive fiats rather than take the time to go through the legislative branch per the original design. Because of this, the SCOTUS has become much more of a political football than its original intent.
I have heard this criticism, but have never found it persuasive. The best law students tend to go to the best schools, and are most likely to get access to clerkships, which are important as a jurist. It is more important to have diversity of experience among the judges--how and where they grew up, what law they practiced and where. Every justice went to law school, and Torts at Harvard is the same as Torts at Hofstra. Having gone to law school and worked with plenty of lawyers from other law schools, I don't think there's any harm in all the justices coming from the top two or three schools. "Elite" in this sense means simply "the best." The "arrogant/out of touch" connotation that people sometimes add to the term doesn't really apply.
But yes, the current condition of the court is shameful. Presidents appoint justices. Republicans have won the popular vote for president ONCE in the past 32 years. And yet 6 out of 9 justices have been appointed by Republican presidents.
To me, it's always been a good idea to study some ideas - (1) expanding the Court and then selecting randomly a subset to hear any given case (which is the way that the Circuit Courts usually operate) in order to cut down on the importance of any single judge or (2) having term limits so each President gets to have 1 or 2 appointments. Or something else to get out of this morass of the Court zinging one way or the other depending on how many appointments any single President has and the two parties always voting against the other parties' nominees regardless of qualifications and credentials.
I guess I was wrong.
That being said, I'd still like to see court reform. It's a bit absurd that 9 unelected justices are allowed to have so much power with no term limits. Not saying that the justices should be elected (that would be absolute chaos) or that the court should be packed, but it would be nice if there were term limits. I also wish they didn't have the power to strike down entire laws. It just seems so counter-productive to strike down the whole thing when they can just strike down part of it and explain the issues with said law. I'd like to see it more like New Zealand (based on what Jerry928 described above).
The short answer is that people suck.
Roberts
Thomas
Alito
Sotomayor
Kavanaugh
Barrett
Gorsuch was raised Catholic but identifies as Protestant
It does seem concerning that a tiny slice of the elite has a lock on this all-important institution.