Isn't this in Article II, Section 1, at least regarding the president?
>domination of money in elections. To the extent that the latter could
>be ameliorated by camaign finance reform, that is blocked by current
>interpretations of the First Amendmend, see Buckley v. Vallejo (money
>is speech), not seperation of powers.
Yes, I'm aware that money and separation of powers are independent ideas. Buckley v. Vallejo is a good example of what might be overturned were judges less insulated from the braying, death-penalty-loving masses. I see it this way: were money removed from politics, it's quite possible that the death penalty would eventually be recognized as the barbarism it is. Money out of politics would likely lessen social stratification, which in turn would open up avenues of treating crime as a social, not a political problem. The current drug war is a reflection, in large measure, of the extent to which money has crafted a policy designed to imprison millions of the poor, rather than creating (possible wealth-redistributing) social policies to deal with the core of the problem.
>The federal judiciary is independent in the sense that lifetime tenure
>and no-reductio[n]-in-salaries means that the Prez cannot fire, nor
>Congress cut the salaries, of judges who make unpopular decisions. If
>you think that doesn't matter, ask Rose Bird, former S.Ct. justice in
>CA, who was defeated in an election campaign because she was anti
>death penalty.
In fact, I don't think it matters too much for the death penalty. Whether judges are elected or appointed seems to me to make little difference today with respect to their opinion on the death penalty. Also not to be forgotten is that the formal democracy which defeated her was a pretty warped version of what (I think) it could be.
>Your point that sometimes, perhaps often, we get reactionary federal
>judges is irrelevant. R's past is shady, although even if it were
>spotless his jurisprudence would be loathsome. Contrast Hugo Black,
>who has a loathsome past--he really was a KKK member--had had great
>jurisprudence. But the promise of the independent judiciary is not
>that it will provide us with progressive judges or even, always, able
>cones (think of Clarence Thomas), but that it will insulate them from
>political pressure and enable them to interpret and enforce the law as
>they see it.
I'm not sure I agree that Black had "great jurisprudence", but I'll have to check more on that... One of my main beefs with the judiciary is the question of qui bono. They seem to be particularly attuned to the needs of "property", as they always have been.
Besides, it's not really reactionary judges that is at issue --- it is the undemocratic structure of the entire system, designed to keep democracy at bay. And no, I don't think democracy is perfect. You will get bad decisions out of any system. I just think that democracy would be a better alternative than to have judges insulated for life from popular will, not to mention the fact that our overdeveloped legal system could very well shrink enormously, were we to be freer to engage the levers of society ourselves. At least, that's what Michael Perelman's new book argues, and I think it's a good argument: I think a lot of problems would simply implode.
Bill