Supreme Court Selection

By Emily Barnhill

In this election year because of the economic climate in the United States many important issues have been overshadowed or just plainly ignored. Two of those topics are pet interests of mine the environment (which is not the direction this post is going in) and the Supreme Court. There has been little mention even with two weeks left to go in the campaign of how the potential Romney administration would affect the Court. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-winkler/romney-supreme-court_b_1997323.html?utm_hp_ref=supreme-court

During the next four years it is likely that Justice Ginsberg (age 79) will retire granted the notorious liberal won’t go out without a fight in a conservative administration; she plans to stay until she turns 82 like Justice Brandeis did. However she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three years ago and only 5% of patients survive past five years. Hopefully because it was caught early and is currently in remission she will get lucky and beat Brandeis’ record. There may also be replacements for Scalia and Kennedy both age 76, but those two aren’t as likely.

Even though recently Romney has come back to the ideological center to pick up the undecided votes, with a bit of success might I add, he stated previously that he would not appoint a moderate judge if president. He wants a judge along the lines of Clarence Thomas who according to a recent study was more conservative than 97% percent of the rest of the population. With a hardcore conservative taking the place of Ginsberg that could give the court a solid 6-3 vote in favor of the conservatives. Even if the moderate Kennedy swings left it wouldn’t make a difference like it does now. Kennedy is why today’s court configuration was able to pass Obamacare and other traditionally liberal decisions.

All of this being said I would like to bring up the politicization of the Court. It was designed to be an impartial 3rd party to solve disputes concerning governmental action or inaction. So under that purpose their personal politics shouldn’t matter, they theoretically should be looking at statues, laws, and regulations without any political thought passing through their mind. However, this is an unrealistic goal. It is virtually impossible to forsake your personal ideology even when it’s the job your doing. This brings me to the question what role should parties play in the court? Should there be a fixed ratio system in place or should the fact just be ignored? One way to think about it is if the people vote a conservative president into office then in the back of their mind they should be accepting of another conservative appointee. Is there any truth to that or should the selection be more transparent and bipartisan?

The Supreme Court with its lack of media appeal and glamour still is an important leadership institution in the American system. Through deciding cases they are taking a leadership role by creating or adapting laws that the states and federal government must adhere to. They also lead by checking the power of our more visible leaders: the legislature and the executive branch. Many people have a probable with this concentration of leadership and power because they aren’t elected and serve for life. Do you think it is a just system? Is this the only way to go about the Court system or is there a greater solution?



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