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To what extent is the US Supreme Court a political body?
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To what extent is the US Supreme Court a political body?
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Jessica lachlanTo what extent is the US Supreme Court a political body? (45)
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has
ultimate and largely discretionary appellate jurisdiction over all federal courts and over
state court cases involving issues of federal law, and original jurisdiction over a small
range of cases. Many people would argue that the Supreme Court is purely a judicial
body but others would say that it is in fact more of a political body.
It could be argued that because Supreme Court judges are appointed by the president
and confirmed by senators that the court is more of a political body. It is also suggested
that presidents look for justices who share their political ideologies/ judicial
philosophy. Justices are classified as whether they are Liberals (loose constructionists)
and conservatives (strict constructionists). So republican presidents tend to appoint
conservative minded judges, for example, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. Democrat
presidents also tend to appoint, Liberal judges, for example Ginsburg, Breyer,
Sotomayor and Kagen. There are exceptions like when G. H. W Bush (republican) did
not realize when he appointed David Souter to the court in 1990 that he was appointing
one of the its most liberal members. However the judges are usually picked on a
political basis.
When Supreme Court judges vote they tend to be in conservative and liberal blocs
which suggests that important decisions where cases are declared constitutional and
unconstitutional are politically based. With the political blocs there are always periods
when a bloc of four consistently conservative justices have opposed 4 consistently
liberal justices which implies decisions are always politically based, however because
there are 9 judges, when the decision is 5-4 there is a swing vote. A swing vote is a
justice who is completely politically un-biased who is going to have to form a majority
with either bloc. Associate justice Anthony Kennedy who was appointed in 1988 by
Regan is the swing voter in the current Supreme Court. Because there are 9 judges and a
swing voter who is completely politically un-biased it makes the decisions slightly less
political.
The case of Bush V Gore in 2000 could also suggest that the court is more of a political
body. Five weeks after the presidential election on the 11th of December the Supreme
Court ruled that the manual recount scheme devised by the Florida Supreme Court was
unconstitutional because it violated the ‘equal protection’ clause of the 14th amendment.
In the same decision the court also ruled that given time constraints, ‘it is evident that
any recount seeking to meet the December 12th deadline will be unconstitutional’. So
the court was seen to be literally handing the election to Bush, which suggests heavy
political biasedness towards the Republican Party.
Many of the cases handled in the supreme court involved public policy which had been
created by a political body such as congress and so it is said the supreme court are
entering a political arena, for instance when it upheld Obamas healthcare reform and
declared it unconstitutional. It could be argued that the Supreme Court is legislating
from the bench, with the Brown V board of education case the supreme court declared
state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students
unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896,
which allowed state-sponsored segregation. Furthermore the actual power the court
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