This is an A* essay evaluating the argument that the appointment process has politicised the supreme court in recent years (30). It also got me an interview at Oxford. It is 30 marks and covers topics in politics paper 3. It is completely extensive and has countless current examples that will be us...
Evaluate the argument that the appointment process has politicised the supreme court in recent
years. (30)
The supreme court has definitely been politicised by the appointment process in recent years
based on the highly political nature of all three stages of the process. The first stage of the
process shows this most significantly, with all of the recent presidents nominations being highly
politically motivated, from Obama using his to incentivise Latina people to vote for him to
Trump’s being influenced by right-wing organisations like the federalist society. While all of the
nominations have been ABA rated “highly qualified”, it is evident that the main concern of recent
nominations has not been judicial competence but instead personal political agenda. The
second stage, the senate judiciary committee, offers a more nuanced argument. The partisan
questioning and refusal to hear candidates based on their political allegiance suggest a highly
political aspect of this stage. However, proper judicial scrutiny is an important feature of this
stage and must also be considered as it inevitably limits the politicisation that can occur. Despite
this, overall even the senate judiciary committee has also evidently politicised the Supreme
Court in recent years. Finally, in the third stage of the process, the senate floor vote has recently
become completely partisan, as revealed by Brett Kavanaugh being confirmed 48-50. While
some do have faith that the senate will vote based on judicial suitability, suggested by the
refusal of the hearing of Merrick Garland based on fears he would be confirmed despite a
republican senate majority, this is a weaker argument based on mere speculation. Overall, it is
highly evident that the appointment process, all the way from stage one to three, has politicised
the supreme court in recent years.
The appointment process has evidently politicised the supreme court in recent years, firstly and
most significantly shown in stage one of the process- nomination. The president having the
power to choose their own nomination to the supreme court inevitable makes this stage highly
politically motivated. Every president will have a political agenda for their nomination, revealed
by Obama's incentive for Latino Americans to vote for him in the 2008 election based on his
promise to nominate Latino Sonya Sotomayor, which he saw through the following year. Biden
employed the same tactic, aiming to gain African American voters by promising to nominate
Ketanji Brown Jackson. Further showing recent politicisation, Trump's nominations were heavily
influenced by right-wing organisations such as the federalist society and the heritage society.
However, while this suggests the recent politicisation of the supreme court based on highly
political present-day nominations, all of these nominations were ABA-rated “highly qualified”,
showing that the nominations were not purely based on political motivations but also on judicial
competence. Despite this, ensuring that nominations are judicially qualified is only a convention,
one that could easily be broken, with the door already ajar based on Clarence Thomas’s rating
of only “qualified”. Furthermore, this doesn’t take away from the fact that all of the recent
nominations have served a political purpose, whether to incentivise voters or influence the
balance of the supreme court ideology and therefore their rulings made as a result. While they
may have still been qualified individuals, it is evident that they would not have been chosen had
they not been in line with the president's ideology and goals, suggesting that political
motivations have become much more important than judicial competence in the nomination
stage of the appointment process. This, therefore, is a strong case to suggest that arguments
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