Current Events > Should US Supreme Court Justices be elected?

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's just weird to me that almost every other political position is elected, including State Supreme Court Justices, but Justices for the US Supreme Court, the highest court in the country, are appointed. Making US Supreme Court Justices elected would give the people more say in the judicial branch.

No. Judges should not have to pander to populism. They should be aloof and independent arbiters and interpreters of the law.

Neither should they be political appointees. There should be an independent, non partisan process of appointment.

Electing judges is an extremely weird concept to me, but since it happens elsewhere in the US, why not?

The idea was for them to not be political. If they need to run for election they would do the whole song and dance.

DodogamaRayBrst posted...

Electing judges is an extremely weird concept to me, but since it happens elsewhere in the US, why not?

It could be like my state (PA) where once they get elected you just vote if they get to keep their job every 10 years. We also have a mandatory retirement age.

We could appoint them in some manner and then have the people vote to retain them or not in some hybrid between the two systems.

Sure. The arguments in this topic so far for them being appointed have clearly not panned out in reality, so they might as well be elected instead.

Just gove one pick to each president and add a 18 year tenure.

Also have to cut one Justice to implement the new system.

No, but I do think it should be mandated that a new Supreme Court justice is appointed every congressional term (2-years), thereby making it known that every election results in a justice being seated and removing the drastic uncertainty caused by a sudden death.

No. But they shouldnt be allowed to get gifts from rich dudes.

https://fixthecourt.com/2024/06/a-staggering-tally-supreme-court-justices-accepted-hundreds-of-gifts-worth-millions-of-dollars/

a revolving door of justices selected from the federal judges around the country is likely the best solution. at this point its obvious that letting a single president appoint the court and having the legislature block appointments because of political bullshit is not a solution.

I don't get why the president is authorized to appoint them.

The POTUS is just an elected official at the end of the day, not necessarily an expert on the judicial system with the best interest of the people in mind. Of course his appointees will be partisan based.

MarshMellow posted...

I don't get why the president is authorized to appoint them.

The POTUS is just an elected official at the end of the day, not necessarily an expert on the judicial system with the best interest of the people in mind.

they make the suggestion and the legislature verifies it, the system was built on the assumption that only educated and forthright men would be involved in the process. obviously the whole thing is broken.

The US elects for positions that should absolutely not be voted on. Judges are one of them.

No, I think it's fine having them appointed by the president, but there definitely need to be term limits and other changes to the system. There have been good suggestions of things like giving every president 1 guaranteed nominee and things like that.

MarshMellow posted...

I don't get why the president is authorized to appoint them.

The POTUS is just an elected official at the end of the day, not necessarily an expert on the judicial system with the best interest of the people in mind. Of course his appointees will be partisan based.

Because the senior member(s) of the other two branches have a part in the process.

President nominates, Senate confirms.

It works about as well as can be expected. The main problems are mostly due to the money from Citizens United not the actual process.

If the concern is about the President making the nomination then I would point out that any alternative would just shift that role to someone else.

And Congress has even lower favorability than [a] President.

MarshMellow posted...

I don't get why the president is authorized to appoint them.

The POTUS is just an elected official at the end of the day, not necessarily an expert on the judicial system with the best interest of the people in mind. Of course his appointees will be partisan based.

The constitution explicitly authorizes him to do so.

lilORANG posted...

The constitution explicitly authorizes him to do so.

And he doesn't appoint. He nominates and the senate either confirms or denies.

Though nowadays it's more like the Heritage Foundation creates a list of nominees, the Potus picks from the list, and the senate votes to confirm.

A_Good_Boy posted...

And he doesn't appoint. He nominates and the senate either confirms or denies.

Though nowadays it's more like the Heritage Foundation creates a list of nominees, the Potus picks from the list, and the senate votes to confirm.

Dont forget the FBI is instructed to not investigate anything and the nominee is coached to answer I cant say how Id rule on a hypothetical case to anything asked.

The point is for them to be non-political. While that's obviously failing right now. Having them need to be elected would make it even worse. The way to improve it would be to either set an age limit at which point they must leave, or to set a limit on the amount of time they can serve.

Honestly, I think they should be. I wouldn't have said so before trump though

They should at least have term limits.

chris1001_the_sequel posted...

The point is for them to be non-political. While that's obviously failing right now. Having them need to be elected would make it even worse. The way to improve it would be to either set an age limit at which point they must leave, or to set a limit on the amount of time they can serve.

This. My position for a long time is that the political temperature on this whole thing would go down if these were not lifetime appointments. Just give them 10 year terms.

Even though this has always been a highly politicized process, the parties tried to keep a fig leaf of non-partisan cooperation. In the old days, a potential justice would face some tough questions, but would easily be confirmed by both parties if qualified regardless of political beliefs. This started to crack when Bork was not confirmed (it was Reagans fault for putting forward a ridiculous nomination), but went to a no going back level when Mitch and the GOP blatantly stole a seat from President Obama and tilted the balance of the court for a generation. No one even pretends it is not political now-the GOP corrupts everything it touches.

The solution is not to go even harder with elections. It is to expand the court and/or institute strict term limits. And maybe actually enforce the rules around conflict of interest so they dont spend the whole term grifting.

The reason the system isn't working is because it depends on at least one of the two other branches not being corrupt and dysfunctionally partisan.

Electing judges doesn't do anything to fix the underlying problem. It just means we'd be putting partisan buffoons in the supreme court by the same process that puts them in congress. Term limits doesn't fix anything either; we'd just have Thomas replaced by another Barrett or Boof.

The_cranky_hermit posted...

The reason the system isn't working is because it depends on at least one of the two other branches not being corrupt and dysfunctionally partisan.

Electing judges doesn't do anything to fix the underlying problem. It just means we'd be putting partisan buffoons in the supreme court by the same process that puts them in congress. Term limits doesn't fix anything either; we'd just have Thomas replaced by another Barrett or Boof.

I agree with everything you said until the last line. The hope would be that the process would be less dysfunctional if the stakes (lifetime appointment) were not so high. I think that is one of the few things we can try to fix it.

Your overall point, though, is a correct and discouraging one. One of the major political parties in this country has decided to act perpetually in bad faith. Voters are not punishing them at the polls for doing that. As long as that is true, there is no safeguard to ensure a functional government. Until that changes, everything suggested is tinkering around the edges.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

This. I dont know the answer to a better way of picking them I just know lifetime appointments was a mistake.

A_Good_Boy posted...

And he doesn't appoint. He nominates and the senate either confirms or denies.

Though nowadays it's more like the Heritage Foundation creates a list of nominees, the Potus picks from the list, and the senate votes to confirm.

The senate has only turned down 11 nominations in over 200 years so you might as well say the president appoints them. Someone like Trump has no business making decisions like that, look at his clown show of a cabinet.