Nexa wrote:
Sure, but congress gets accused of being a pain in the *** if they don't just go along with whoever the president wants, many seem to think it's just the president's right to place whoever he likes.
I don't think it's about whether they go along with what the president want's, but that they often use a SC nomination as a means to politicize the event and score "points".
Congress is supposed to base their approval of a nominee purely on the ability of that person to serve. They are specifically *not* supposed to base it on the politics or judicial stance of the nominee. Yet, what we often see is Congressmen asking specific judicial questions (typically Congressmen of the party other then that of the president). They do this because they know they aren't supposed to ask judicial questions, and they know that the nominee, not only isn't required to answer them, but *shouldn't* (for very good reasons), but they do it anyway because they know that by doing so, it makes it look like the nominee maybe has something to hide, or an agenda, or something else sinister. They're basically playing on the public's lack of knowledge of the nomination process to score some quick and easy political points.
The reason they're not supposed to ask judicial questions is simple. The executive branch is granted that power. Not the Legistlative. And this makes sense if you think about it. While some might call it too much power for the executive to pick judges they agree with (or who agree with them), the executive has no other powers when it comes to creating or ruling on law. Allowing Congress to approve judicial appointments based on how they'll rule on law effectively gives the Legistlative branch the power to both write the laws, and select the judges who'll rule on those laws. That's a *huge* imbalance of power.
Remember all those Democrat Congressmen raising a stink about how he refused to answer questions about how he'd rule on a Roe v. Wade case (and others) if it came to him? Pure posturing for the public. Nothing more. The "drama" of SC appointments only exists because the public gets to see them on TV. If the cameras were turned off, none of those shenegans would occur. Due to the way the rules are written, they can ask any question tbey want. But he's only required to answer questions about his work history and capability to fill the bench. And they're only supposed to vote to approve or disapprove based on those areas as well.
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On a related note: I thought it was really strange that someone would get nominated to be Chief Justice when the CJ died. I assumed that a new CJ would be nominated from within the existing SC justices and that the new person would be a regular justice, rather than Chief Justice. Does anyone else think that's strange?
Yeah. I thought it worked that way as well. Never really looked at it though. I think it's just something that's totally up to the president. When a vacancy appears on the bench, he's allowed to fill it in whatever manner he chooses. That could be promoting someone else to Chief Justice, or appointing someone new to fill the spot. I couldn't say how unusual it is for a president to nominate someone new directly to Chief Justice as opposed to promotion of another Justice, so I can't really judge whether there's anything "strange" about it.