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.
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
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.
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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
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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
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