Hooray supreme courtFollow

America is a representative government, right? So how do you all feel about the fact that the supreme court justices (nowadays possibly the most important people in the nation domestically) are not elected by us? The supreme court immediately sets the law of the land. Yet, these men are not elected in any way by the people.. they are chosen by the president for their personal beliefs which more often than not do not reflect the beliefs of the voters.

I ask due to President Bush's recent statements that he will only appoint a supreme court justice who is "of a mindset to overturn 'Roe v. Wade." It kind of defeats the system of checks and balances when the president is able to force his beliefs by loading the court with people that mirror his opinion on singular topic, no? When one man is able to override the feelings of over half the country, wouldn't it make a little more sense to be able to elect supreme court justices?

We've been discussing it a lot in my legal systems class, and we've almost unanimously agreed that the president's actions are unprecedented, and might almost warrant a change in the means that justices were appointed. Obviously it won't happen (like a president would ever give up some of his power?), but in theory, it would work better for the people of the nation, correct?

The supreme court justices aren't elected for a reason. They're appointed by the president for a lifetime term, so that they can vote their conscience without having to be beholden to any one political party to get them re-elected. The president, if he's very lucky with the timing of his term, usually gets to appoint one or two justices. If a president ever got to appoint a majority of the justices, you might have a fair argument. But as it is, the president can only hope to hand-pick one or two appointees. Because of this, the supreme court remains pretty moderate and unbiased, which is exactly what it needs to be to be able to function as intended.

As much as Bush is a fu[/b]cking moron and as much as I don't want to see Roe v. Wade get overturned, this is the way it's worked for 200 years now. I have no problems with the current system.

These are all valid points. Like you said, the president rarely gets to elect more than 2 justices. However, in certain cases where the decisions of the supreme court have been 5-4, electing 2 justices is more than enough for the president to put 2 men on the chair who would vote the way he wanted... just like Bush said he would.

If all of the possible nominees are of a mindset that Bush said he would choose, the board would have to put 2 of them through eventually. There can't be a hole on the supreme court, and if Bush kept throwing potential justices at them, eventually they would have to relent.

As for federal judges, I don't really care very much about their appointment. If the federal court is run by a bunch of draconian reactionaries, you still have the option of appealing to the supreme court. The supreme court, on the other hand, sets instant law. There is no higher court, which is why it would make sense that the people should have a say in who gets appointed.

And while the justices are supposedly non-partisan, you and I both know very well that they have their own beliefs, and their own relations with a given party just like very other American.

Yes it would suck to have to research the beliefs and standpoints of different judges, but people need to do more research of candidates nowadays anyway, lol.

Oddly enough, the Roe v. wade decision is one of those cases where the courts were really legislating. In other words, if you get right down to the law, it should be overturned. That's half of why it was contreversial in the first place. Many people who agree with the end result don't think it was the court's place to make the decision in that manner. That's why we have law-making bodies. We don't need legislation from the bench.

I don't think that would be a good thing, in this case. I don't particularly like restrictive legislation. I like the idea that we should make as few laws as possible restricting the freedoms of individuals, especially cases where the only benefit of restricting freedom is to satisfy the morals of a particular group.

I wouldn't mind seeing Roe v. Wade overturned....so long as we immediately put laws into effect to the same effect. That would eliminate both halves of the problem (yeah, fat chance.)

Actually that's not 100% true. The justices ruled that it was covered by the... 9th amendment I think? Whichever is deemed to include other inalienable rights, such as privacy. They weren't legislating, they were extending the meaning of the constitution. It's called judicial activism.

Several issues/questions:



You put the bolded selection in quotes. Mind actually coming up with a source for that? To my knowledge, Bush has never stated that he intends to put Justices on the court that will overturn Roe v Wade. I have however seen a whole ton of Liberal sources that assume that's what he will do. But you have to take that with a grain of salt since those same Liberal sources have said that about every single Republican president for the last 25 years. Oddly, Roe v Wade hasn't been overturned yet...




Was this something the class came up with on their own? Or did your teacher maybe prompt you a tiny bit? Do some research. In what exact way is this "unprecidented". SCOTUS justices have always been appointed by the sitting president, so this is not unusual at all. I'd also say it's hardly unprecidented for a president to appoint them based on their views on specific issues (unless you can find evidence to the contrary).

So we're really left with your class's determination that this is unprecidented because a president is specifically targetting one court case. Isn't that a bit overboard? Until/unless you can actually provide a source for the quote above, isn't that a bit of an over reaction?

Your class has basically decided that we should chuck our our current system of appointing justices because a president might do something that you might not like. Um... Ever consider that that's exactly why we appoint them instead of electing them? It's to prevent justices from being voted in by a largely ignorant and easily swayed public.

I'm curious. Exactly where did your class get the information about what sort of justices Bush would appoint? Was it by any chance your teacher? If so, do us all (and the state of education in the US) a favor and ask him to prove that Bush has said that and that that's what Bush will actually do. Ask him if the same Liberal sources didn't say the exact thing about Reagan, and then have him list off the justices appointed by Reagan and where they stand in terms of Liberal/Conservative viewpoints.

After all, his job is to inform and instruct, not to fill your heads with his own political bias.




You've got that backwards IIRC. Out of the three justices likely to step down, two are Conservative leaning and one is Moderate. Um... I'd also point out that the Moderate justice was one of the appointees of Reagan. Another Republican president who all the Liberals assumed would stuff the courts with anti Roe v Wade justices.


This is just more "the sky is falling" rhetoric from the left. "Don't vote in a Republican president cause he'll appoint justices who'll overturn Roe v Wade". I've heard that exact message every single election since I was a teen. Strangely, despite the fact that most of the presidents elected since then have been Republicans, that still hasn't happened. You'd think they'd get tired and get a new bag...


The vetting process for justices is pretty extreme. It's hard to get a justice that has an active agenda to reverse anything in existing court ruling history. The president can't just stick anyone he wants in there, despite what many people may think. IMO, the process we use is much better at ensuring justices are as non-politically aligned as possible. If a justice rules against abortion rights, it wont be because he was appointed by a Repubican president. It'll be because he actually doesn't believe that abortion should be a constitutionally protected right. That is the truth pretty universally in our Supreme Court right not. If we were to go to elected judges, they'd have to campaign, right? That guarantees that they'll be selected based on how they'll rule on specific hot button issues that the public cares about.

The idea is a horrible one. And you can tell your class and teacher I said that. So far, I see nothing but fearmongering behind any push to change the system we use. In typical fashion though, there's almost no thought given to what will happen under a new system, and how that will make the very situation *worse*.

Please tell me this isn't a college level course...

If you look at the long term history of the supreme court, they have a great reluctance to overturn rulings made by previous supreme courts. I would not kiss Roe vs. Wade good bye so quickly.
If the supreme court readily overturned rulings made by previous supreme courts there would be a huge vacumm in the legal structure. I am sure all the justices are aware of this and so is anyone that could be considered a potential canidate.

I like the thought that justices serve for life, are free to make decissions based on their own values without worrying about repercussions to their career.

the judges in teh suppreme court can not be elected. if they were, lobbiest groups would be deciding who will make our laws. that would be much worse than the system we have now.

and once they are in power, they are beholding to no one. they cannot be fired. not even by the president.

it is YOUR FAULT the president has any say at all who gets nominated. you reelected the idiot.

in his first term, he got rid of the system we had in place since this country was formed for nominating judges. and effectivly handed the entire nomination process to the president.

this is just ONE of MANY little changes Bush has passed to grant greater power to the presidents office. your rights, and the checks and ballences we HAD in place before Bush are being stripped away little by little, to give greater power to the executive branch.

now, you do not even need a declaration of war to go to war from congress. all you need is the president ot "believe" there is imminent danger to this country for him to declare war without us even being attacked.

this is another little thing he passed in his first term.

but all you stupid sheits were crying about abortion, and gays so much, you let it slip by without even a whimper. like making it legal to import and sale endangered animals and their parts.

waaa waaa waaaa, keep the gays out of our chr=urch, waaa waaaa, no more abortions, waaa waaa.....WTF? .....when did the executive branch become a dictatorship?.......

stupid is as stupid does. when enough of you stupid right wing fanatics finnally realize what has been happening to our country, it will be too late. it IS too late.

and when you do, and if you have enough balls to try to fix it...again......we will help you.....again. it will take decades to fix this mess. we will be here waiting. just let us know.

if not, WE ALL will get what YOU DESERVE.

Um, I'm gonna have to say "ditto" to what gbaji said. Last I heard, there wasn't a constitutional ammendment, and therefore, GDubya hasn't changed the way Supreme Court Justices are appointed. I might be wrong, but I thought that it basically went something like this: The president throws a name out, that person undergoes Senate confirmation. Did that change?

Hmmm. Yeah, shadow is a complete idiot.

Irrelevant even if true. Bosnia and Gulf War 1 were multilateral wars with clear justification that didn't require the stretching of evidence to gain public support. They were also successful in meeting their objectives.

Since when are elections a military objective?

Anyway, would you mind providing a list of the military and civil (and other) objectives for Iraq, pre-war?

Edited, Fri Jan 28 23:22:52 2005 by Palpitus

You mean you only just noticed??

but at least he isn't so stupid he thinks that the war in Iraq has been a sucsess.....