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this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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This is genuinely quite a scary belief coming from a SCOTUS justice. In effect he is saying that the SCOTUS is the only institution in the US that is completely untouchable by legislation. That elevates the SCOTUS to a level beyond any other government position. Effectively our benevolent overlords. Given how low of approval ratings that the SCOTUS has, their recent series of ideological activist decisions, and the fact that they aren't even elected positions, I find myself increasingly in support of a fundamental redefinition of the SCOTUS as we know it. I don't see why we shouldn't stack the SCOTUS when they've fundamentally abandoned their duty to any level of fairness or responsibility for the citizens of the US.
Unelected, serve for life, say they are untouchable and can do as they please. How is that not a king?
Any position that is for life is too long, especially an appointed one with almost zero mechanisms for removal.
Almost, impeachment is one big one allowed. I believe only one justice was impeached but I bet the issue is, you can't get republicans to agree as then democrats can put one in. Which is a terrible injustice so they'll make sure to vote down anything to make sure the supreme court stays right winged.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Except the one mechanism for removal. You don't need more than one.
because they're not murdered by their successor?
Not murdered by their successor so far
Did you ever hear the tragedy of Ruth Ginsburg the Wise?
too soon
Still miss her :(
I still blame her for Barrett.
Because Supreme Court cant create their own laws directly, missing legislature power, having no direct power to control national finances/budgets, a main power of a country and they dont have control of the executives including army and police. All their power depends on laws made by legislature and constitution.
Thats how the three pillars of power works in all democracies. Just because your legislature or executives or even forefathers who made the constitution fucked up, doesnt mean the supreme court is an absolute monarchy. The biggest piece of shit mistake you made was having a two party system. In other countries, supreme courts arent as binary partisan. Coalitions of Partys vote way more reasonable judges to supreme courts
George Washington warned against bicameralism, but they ignored him. Our Supreme Court positions have always been non-partisan until recent history.
And the amount of people willing to dismantle this particular one means it does serve its purpose well.
The "unelected" part is on purpose, though I'd prefer sortition.
The biggest group of voters may decide who controls the government, but they shouldn't decide who takes places in the supreme court. At least not in the same mechanism.
Well, unless you can make it a 95% "in favor" vote, of course. Then, I guess, there'd be no hope anyway.
They think they're the equivalent of the mullahs of Iran apparently.
It's funny you say that because that's exactly where my mind went too. A system with elections, but a class of officials that exist outside of that system and that can overrule it and can't be touched by it.
It's also an incredibly dangerous thing for a justice to say because it just begs for a constitutional test. The court is probably best known for the ability to decide whether a law is constitutional, or judicial review, which is not spelled out in the constitution. So let's say congress passes a law concerning ethics on the court and the court says "that's not constitutional" and congress just goes "neither is judicial review." Pure chaos. The courts power mostly is like that episode of The Office where Pam says she's the office manager and everyone just goes along with it. The court says it has judicial review authority, and everyone just went "ok."
I like the idea of terms being twenty years and judges being selected randomly from existing sitting judges in lower courts. Takes all the air out of the balloon around Congress fighting over approving SCOTUS judges.
I kind of like that idea, except I think it's less likely to create a non-partisan court and more likely to create a randomly partisan court. Like, odds are that five of the justices would still have a partisan lean. Is that fair to the American people? Also, when Republicans block a president from having their judicial nominations confirmed, then it becomes even more likely for conservative justices to make it to the SCOTUS. Same for if Dems blocked. It would incentize obstruction.
I've felt that we should simply have the SCOTUS be elected like we do in many states. Why shouldn't the people have a direct say in who makes the greatest decisions about our constitution? It was one thing when the court was ostensibly non-partisan, but at this point if it's going to be partisan either way, we should just make it elected.
Alternatively, we could bake the partisanship into the court. Make the court have an even number, then reward an equal number of justices to the major parties (parties receiving more than x% of the vote in presidential elections or something like that). If libertarians or greens ever get more popular, we can have the court autoadjust to split between more parties. That's my hairbrained idea that would probably be too messy to be worth it.