>Given how fantastical this apocolyptic thinking is about what the
>Supreme Court might do if one or the other candidate gets elected, how
>come nobody ever asks the question:
>
>Why should these 9 people have any say over how we lives our lives?
>
>Smells like the divine right of the Sumpreme Court to me.
>
>Chuck0 "abolish the 9 Supremes"
Well, these nine people have a say over how we live our lives because we have laws that have to be interpreted, and laws require a final interpreter. It doesn't have to be them--in England it's the Parliament--but it has to be someone, and this is the way our constitutional structure evolved after Madison v. Marbury, which gave the courts the power to invalidate Congressional enactments. It's not obvious that it is a bad thing overall, either, to have a judiciary that is insulated from immediate political pressures. I work for a federal judge who sometimes has to make unpopular calls, and it's nice not to have to worry about whether they will hurt her chances for reelection.
We all do have to pay attention to which judges get appointed--you'd like my judge; she wouldn't be appointed under a Bush, probably--although the last judge I worked for was appointed by Reagan to the district (trial) court and Busg to the court of appeals, and is the biggest bleeding heart liberal I have ever met. So you can't tell. But be that as it may, this isn't an argument for having laws interpreted in accord with immediate political pressures. The elected judiciaries we have here in Illinois and elsewhere do not suggest that this makes for better or more democratic jurisprudence.
--jks
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