You have to wonder, though, if that outcome was inevitable by the design of the Supreme Court.
How could you make an entity that’s appointed solely by politicians, who are going to play party games, with any sort of expectation it won’t end up being completely politicized?
I mean, it’s perhaps more corrupt and perhaps more obnoxiously loud as a political entity, but if you look at its entire history, it’s not like it suddenly became a political tool just now, and that it was previously a shining beacon of honesty and impartiality.
We like to imagine that the people who wrote the constitution were very uniformly in agreement about all of it, but there was a lot of disagreement that made it more of a “least disagreeable” implementation than a “best” implementation.
Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. … Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots.
Thomas Jefferson, on why he thinks the concept of judicial review is shitty and not supported by the constitution.
So if you went back in time, a good number of the people who wrote the constitution would say “no duh” to finding out things went pear shaped, or at least the perception of such things increased.
The Supreme Court has too much power and Article III of the U.S. Constitution contains the solution. The important part is in the second paragraph below. The Supreme Court, by design, has original jurisdiction only over “cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party.” SCOTUS has appellate jurisdiction in all cases mentioned in the first paragraph, and here is the critical part, “with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”
Congress has the authority to take away the court’s appellate authority in the vast majority of cases. They could create a Supreme Appellate Court that would decide the vast majority of the cases that SCOTUS now decides. Congress could strip SCOTUS of all authority other than that specifically defined in the Constitution; that of “cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party.”
Article III, Section 2
The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;–to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;–to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;–to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;–to controversies between two or more states;–between a state and citizens of another state;–between citizens of different states;–between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.
In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.
The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.
As Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted during the oral arguments when SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade:
“there’s so much that’s not in the Constitution, including the fact that we have the last word. Marbury versus Madison. There is not anything in the Constitution that says that the Court, the Supreme Court, is the last word on what the Constitution means. It was totally novel at that time. And yet, what the Court did was reason from the structure of the Constitution that that’s what was intended.”
Each branch of government is supposed to be a check on the power of the others. The Legislative and Executive branches are not powerless against the current court, except for the fact that the Republicans in the House and Senate stand in the way of meaningful reform. Vote blue at every level if you want to save this country. Because right now we have a royal court backed up by the GOP in the legislature that is really ruling the land and that’s the only way we will ever change it.
Congress has the authority to take away the court’s appellate authority in the vast majority of cases
Yeah, in theory, but that’ll happen roughly never. Congress is far too focused on decorum, and tradition, and making insider stock trades to enrich themselves to pull their collective heads out of their own asses to pass even basic, simple, required and popular laws never mind spending time to fix other branches of the government.
I don’t want to veer into the failed state crackpottiness or anything, but even an actual insurrection invading the capitol didn’t get them to do anything so I’m at a substantial loss as to what could possibly motivate congress to you know, legislate.
The founders were adamant that there should be no parties. That lasted about five minutes. If you have the rose-colored glasses of a party-less system, it might be easy to expect that to work out.
History is just us in the past. Sentiments may change over time but people are still basically the same mostly hairless apes we’ve been for at least 50,000 years.
If most people’s public education was similar to mine, then we grew up hearing about a series of really bad, politicized calls the Supreme Court made throughout our history. It has, quite frankly, almost always benefited conservatives who don’t want things to change.
Term limits? Presidents are limited to four year terms while supreme court judges are appointed for life. If they were evenly distributed, no president could appoint enough justices to control the court, and odds favor a partisan balance. That worked until recent years.
This is the danger of term limits for judges. Sure, it would help our current mess, and there’s something to be said for faster turnover, but statistically it will make the problem worse, the courts more partisan
President Biden supports a system in which the President would appoint a Justice every two years to spend eighteen years in active service on the Supreme Court.
The court was not designed to be a political institution but it absolutely has become one. Corrupt and terrible.
You have to wonder, though, if that outcome was inevitable by the design of the Supreme Court.
How could you make an entity that’s appointed solely by politicians, who are going to play party games, with any sort of expectation it won’t end up being completely politicized?
I mean, it’s perhaps more corrupt and perhaps more obnoxiously loud as a political entity, but if you look at its entire history, it’s not like it suddenly became a political tool just now, and that it was previously a shining beacon of honesty and impartiality.
We like to imagine that the people who wrote the constitution were very uniformly in agreement about all of it, but there was a lot of disagreement that made it more of a “least disagreeable” implementation than a “best” implementation.
Thomas Jefferson, on why he thinks the concept of judicial review is shitty and not supported by the constitution.
So if you went back in time, a good number of the people who wrote the constitution would say “no duh” to finding out things went pear shaped, or at least the perception of such things increased.
The Supreme Court has too much power and Article III of the U.S. Constitution contains the solution. The important part is in the second paragraph below. The Supreme Court, by design, has original jurisdiction only over “cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party.” SCOTUS has appellate jurisdiction in all cases mentioned in the first paragraph, and here is the critical part, “with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”
Congress has the authority to take away the court’s appellate authority in the vast majority of cases. They could create a Supreme Appellate Court that would decide the vast majority of the cases that SCOTUS now decides. Congress could strip SCOTUS of all authority other than that specifically defined in the Constitution; that of “cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party.”
Article III, Section 2
As Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted during the oral arguments when SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade:
Each branch of government is supposed to be a check on the power of the others. The Legislative and Executive branches are not powerless against the current court, except for the fact that the Republicans in the House and Senate stand in the way of meaningful reform. Vote blue at every level if you want to save this country. Because right now we have a royal court backed up by the GOP in the legislature that is really ruling the land and that’s the only way we will ever change it.
Yeah, in theory, but that’ll happen roughly never. Congress is far too focused on decorum, and tradition, and making insider stock trades to enrich themselves to pull their collective heads out of their own asses to pass even basic, simple, required and popular laws never mind spending time to fix other branches of the government.
I don’t want to veer into the failed state crackpottiness or anything, but even an actual insurrection invading the capitol didn’t get them to do anything so I’m at a substantial loss as to what could possibly motivate congress to you know, legislate.
It made it about 250 years before imploding, so it wasn’t a terrible design.
The founders were adamant that there should be no parties. That lasted about five minutes. If you have the rose-colored glasses of a party-less system, it might be easy to expect that to work out.
History is just us in the past. Sentiments may change over time but people are still basically the same mostly hairless apes we’ve been for at least 50,000 years.
If most people’s public education was similar to mine, then we grew up hearing about a series of really bad, politicized calls the Supreme Court made throughout our history. It has, quite frankly, almost always benefited conservatives who don’t want things to change.
Term limits? Presidents are limited to four year terms while supreme court judges are appointed for life. If they were evenly distributed, no president could appoint enough justices to control the court, and odds favor a partisan balance. That worked until recent years.
This is the danger of term limits for judges. Sure, it would help our current mess, and there’s something to be said for faster turnover, but statistically it will make the problem worse, the courts more partisan
If each president gets to appoint 2 judges over a 4 year period, how would that make the problem worse without one party winning every election?
You’re assuming a perfect distribution: a different justice every two years. That does make sense but I hadn’t thought of it that way
I was assuming like now. A random distribution but over a shorter period
I was basing that on Biden’s 18 year term limit proposal that allowed an appointment every 2 years.