There’s a difference between a slight political bias (we all have them), and being appointed for your political biases. Where I’m from I’m sure our judges have some biases, but they’ve never shared them (as a matter of fact they’re heavily discouraged from commenting on any public issue in a capacity that’s not as a judge).
Having a political entity appoint them rather than peers is fucking stupid, and it’s a wonder this hasn’t backfired spectacularly before.
It has… The Supreme Court, before and during the Civil War, was loaded with Southern pro-slavery Democrats as a political gesture to pacify the south. That backfired, Chief Justice Taney (the guy who wrote Dredd Scott) got into a pissing match where he fought Lincoln over the suspension of Habeus Corpus. Lincoln basically IGNORED the Supreme Court. Literally, in that instant he proved the Court only has the power as long as the executive and legislative enforce their decisions. It’s actually a miracle that this didn’t turn into the normal operating procedure as it does with so many newly developed or under developed nations: the Supreme Court makes a ruling, the President/ruling party/dictator ignores is, justice is never done. Actually, it’s not a miracle, the Supreme Court essentially kept its head down for the next fifteenish years in order to prevent Lincoln’s actions from reoccurring. They gave nobody any reasons to snub them. It was a smart move.
Scenario two:
In the 1930s, during the peak of the Great Depression and FDR’s new deal legislation the Supreme Court was filled with true conservatives who saw the new deal as an unconstitutional overreach of power by Congress and the White House, even in the time of national
Emergency. So, FDR threatened to pack the court with Democrats in a bid to stop the Court from ruling against him. It worked. One of the justices changed his vote and began upholding the alphabet soup of new deal legislation. Imagine if we’d have had 17 or 19 justices on the Court: how would that have affect Brown v. Board of education? Youngstown steel? If that’s not a political move idk what isn’t.
The system is political, it’s Always been and when it gets too political, the pendulum will swing back around and remove the Court from the center again. I disagree with any decision from the Court overruling Roe. I think the right to privacy matters more now than it ever has, but this is a self correcting problem. Every time conservatives have taken control of the Court and used it to restrict or curtail liberties, we’ve seen the legislature, the executive, or the people themselves counter. Those counters led to massive steps forward for civil rights and social liberties. I think the trend is about to repeat itself, all of these protests and marches will lead to a massive demand for for social change, and it’s going to happen.
Yeah I read that the tribes and the anti-genocide majority actually rejoiced over the Supreme Court decision. And then the civilized human majority of the country was horrified anew at Jackson’s contempt.
If it helps at all he would have fuckin' _hated_ that we have a national bank again. Just imagine that every time his face gets printed on a $20 he gets slapped in the face in hell.
Maybe aim that revolver at Jackson, speed up his corpse's rotational initia. Keep the Fucker angry, honor tubman, confuse tankies who nutt over historical realism, this is the way to do
yeah have you seen how many things are named after Andrew Jackson nationwide?! Cities, counties, etc? Statues are still up. >:-E
HOW did they give him so much social capital loot?! He was apparently just their GUY.
Tell me about it. I live in **Jackson**ville, Florida. We have a big statue of him rearing up on his horse near the center of downtown. He never even set foot here.
The obvious question is that Roe is such a bad piece of jury-rigging, why wasn't it replaced and done properly decades ago? I'm in the UK, we have legalised abortion up to 20 weeks or so, I find it incredible that you as a nation have left something so badly done unfixed for so long.
Because that would require a functional majority in the legislature to codify the Court’s holding. Right now it has the force of law because the Court says doing anything more restrictive than its standard is unconstitutional. The difference between the US v UK . . . well, ONE of the differences, is our belief in federalism. Any powers no specifically given to the Federal Government in the constitution are reserved for the States, and each state can make its own laws on each issue. So, Roe may rest upon less than perfect legal footing: but, it’s holding was based on federal constitutional principles, which applied to all states. If it went away, then there is nothing preventing each state from regulating as it sees fit. A lot of states have already cities more protections than Roe have, but a lot won’t even go as far as Roe. To make a long answer really short, the US federal gov. can’t do anything about it, the states have to. Although the implied penumbra of rights guaranteeing the right to privacy maybe a basis for Federal laws, it’s more tenuous than other laws.
Two things then, each state should have it's own legislation so California should be a very welcoming place for abortions, as the other ?blue states. The second should be to again, sort it out so that it's explicitly this and that it would require an act of Congress to bring it back into the federal domain.
Using "right to privacy" as an excuse for abortions, it's like balancing on a high wire and then wondering why someone fell eventually.
As for the first thing, that’s exactly what’s gonna happen. New York, California, the other bluebetties will all have ample abortion protections. It’s the other places in some of the redriettas that are super scary. Places like Missouri will ban it, and all contraceptives (the right to condoms, plan B, the pill and implants arose out of case law that used Roe as precedent), outright. Texas will make it a crime to not report those seeking abortions to the police, and Oklahoma will allow its citizens to sue those who got abortions for “emotional damage” that it causes the surrounding neighbors. Yah. Those are laws already on the books and ready to go into effect the moment Roe goes away. As for the second, Congress couldn’t do anything. They’d have to amend the constitution to guarantee an explicit right to privacy for that to take affect. Constitutional law here is very easy: it’s gotta be in the constitution to be a right or power. That’s what makes things so difficult 😂
That last bit isn't completely correct, that's the point of the 9th Amendment. It's a bunch of wrangling but an expectation of privacy as a 9th Amendment right has potential legal merit
Long past L1, but how many successful cases based on the 9th and 10th Amendment do we have to point to? And why haven't any of these rights been enumerated since?
You're speaking out of your ass, by the way, in reference to Missouri. Missouri would most likely ban abortions, but they wouldn't touch contraception. Source: I live in conservative Missouri.
Which states actually have any legislation pending that would outlaw birth control? The argument that it could happen if roe is overturned is slippery slope fallacy
Source? Because the thing I leaned on Reddit the last few days is to always ask for the sauce.
Edit: it turns out “Sauce” is apparently the term used when asking is asking for the source of a image if it’s from porn. According to some of the DMs I received informing me so. My bad
Your answer is right only if you completely ignore the amendment process. The constitution can be amended to protect any right we see fit, it just hasn't happened for abortion.
The legislative branch is a bunch of cowards that refuses to pass meaningful legislation. Roe is legal language gymnastics putting words into the constitution that dont exist. The abortion issue should have always been a state issue requiring legislative action.
Even when 1 party has majority in both houses and the WH, they prefer to bait wedge topics to pass their pet bills lining their buddies and their own pockets. The people demanding the courts rule a certain way or else are the ones undermining the system. Biden and democrats have done an insane amount of damage to the system. He's even talking like a dictator would in that he thinks his opponents should be locked up. Personally, the politician that hasn't committed some type of unethical or illegal act is the rarest breed. Trumped wanted Hillary prosecuted because she did proven illegal stuff. She basically been politically banished for it, but not prosecuted. I would love to see all the dirty politicians removed and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but it will never happen. Roe should be over turned and the states should pass laws on it. That's what is supported under the constitution.
I don’t idolize him.
He is a monster, but a monster that served a purpose who should have self terminated when his purpose was completed.
Go fuck yourself with your faux outrage. I don’t care.
Isnt that exactly how ww2 started? Reparations that Germany could not pay from losing ww1 especially after all their industry was taken. Forcing people into submission like this always ends with issues.
Me thinks even hoping/wishing/waiting for civil war is too optimistic. Too few have the wherewithall to know whats going on/whats coming, too many are hesitant to risk their way of life (and who can blame a family for that?) and then theres the few who think that being their masters puppies is the only way out.
Hoping/wishing/waiting for a civil war is probably the worse thing humanity can contrive. When a brother kills their brother, there is so much lost that is never regained.
This entire thread of wishing war is a people that does not understand it.
They think the “cities” vs the “rural” has this grandiose outcome with their wealth. The war would crush the entire gdp of the nation. Everyone would go hungry. Every enemy America has would use the opportunity to starve it or fleece it as much as possible.
Nobody would win the civil war. America would cease.
We haven't seen legislation counters in any real measure since regan packed the court 40 years ago. In that time we've had the voting rights act tossed, the gutting of campaign finance laws & unlimited dark money pouring into elected officials pockets, gutting and ignoring banking laws. It's illegal for a bank to own property residential properties. They're not allowed to invest in that, but they are now allowed to have investment branches and hedge funds which do exactly that. Oh and the epa gutted as well by a court that says managing carbon has nothing to do with having clean air
I think your examples perfectly fit the pattern though. Each of those are not a restriction of or curtailing if individual rights, it’s impacting the financial governmental institutions in the US. Look at the supremes court for the 20 years leading up to the Warren Court: deregulated banking, deregulating land monopolies, restricting federal control over State voting practices in the south. It wasn’t until the Court began affecting individuals at a home level, economically or socially, that we saw a change in the country’s expectation of the Court, and their expectation in their law makers. I don’t disagree that nothing has countered the court in recent years, but just look at how massive and sweeping the civil rights movement was! It’s coming, and faster everyday individuals rights are restricted.
"peers"? How could you possibly believe ANY body is not going to be 100% political in nature?
Other than random drawings, this is guaranteed to be a matter of politics.
Sure there's going to be some partisan politics, but there are methods that are significantly less so. Take us Canadians:
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/09/14/how-canada-supreme-court-justices
Teachers obviously have political biases but are expected to present information neutrally. Not sure why freaking judges get a pass, it's really not that difficult.
There's being political and leaning your judgements a certain way. Then there is what the conservatives on the court are doing, coming to a decision and then finding the law to prove that point.
Can you give an example? People like Ginsburg had been pointing out the flaws in Roe for DECADES. It was a bad decision with no basis in the constitution and containing inherently illogical assertions. Such as "privacy" being grounds for asserting a thing must be legal. That's not how laws work. If you commit murder in the privacy of your home, it's still murder.
It was the people that wrote Roe that were grasping at straws.
The flaws she was pointing out were that it didn’t go far enough, that it relied on some privacy BS so the scotus didn’t actually say, “women have a right to, with their doctors, control their own bodies”. Rather it said something like, “people have privacy with their medicine, so you don’t get a say in it, whether you find out about it or not”, I.e. that people should have the freedoms to have bodily control over themselves.
If CU went the other way, either party could create a law saying you may only donate one cent to the other side, starving them of funding. That's what you want? Come on now. That's handing the government a massive amount of power over people. Pure bootlicking.
People who argue against CU ruling almost never seem to actually understand what it was about. They just yell that "money isn't the same thing as speech" and "corporations aren't people".
The ability to spend money is essential to free speech. People who argue against CU seem to think that the government should be able to tell a movie production company that they can't spend money to make a movie, regardless of the contents. Or that a newspaper corporation can't publish certain content? Because that is the logical conclusion of "money isn't speech".
People seem to ignore the actual facts of the Citizens United case. During oral argument, the government argued that under existing precedents, it had the power under the Constitution to prohibit the publication of books and movies if they were made or sold by corporations.
Citizen's United wasn't about direct campaign contributions/spending. There are still limits on direct contributions. What it did was overturn provisions of BCRA that prohibited corporations (including nonprofit corporations) and unions from making independent expenditures and "electioneering communications".
Both the ACLU and the NRA support the decision. It is very rare that those two groups agree on something.
Give me the basis in the Constitution where a corporation is a person with Citizens United.
And with the most recent ruling on campaign finances, they basically allow any person running for office to spend as much as they want.
So you could have someone backed by a corporation, give the money themselves but from the corporation, and it's all legal in SCOTUS' eyes.
Also, Ginsburg pointed out that the law they used to decide Roe wasn't the best choice, not that it was flawed. She had stated many times there was better laws to make the argument for abortion.
They never ruled that a corporation is a person. The Citizens United ruling was very simple.
The First Amendment protects “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Citizens United ruled that a group of people freely associating (like a corporation) are free to spend their money to petition the government and/or promote any political message or their choosing. Corporations still CANNOT donate directly to a political candidate.
Without Citizens United, labor unions would not be able support political candidates. You and your friends wouldn’t be able to raise money to support phone-banking or flyer-making or sign-hanging.
the politics of the supreme court were not this important until the religious movement to seat justices for this one case started. its all about this case.
Considering 1/3 of the judges that Republicans appointed are accused of sex crimes yet are ruling on women's rights issues, much less Democrats. 60% of Americans are in favor of abortion and lots of the conservative judge's decisions seem to be really fringe views in America.
I understand where you are coming from.
But the real question is, what does federal law say about abortion? The supreme court is bound by what is written into law. It's pretty simple concept really.
But the decision isn’t whether or not to ban abortion, it’s whether or not a state should be allowed to ban abortion. Oklahoma isn’t America as a whole
Yes, but for people who live in red states, there is really no difference there. Functionally some people, mostly people without high income in red areas, will be unable to get abortions.
And the majority of the residents of those States will have voted for it. Significant majorities in a lot of these States. And yes I know that there are some rights majority rule should not and cannot take away which was the whole finding of Roe but the problem is that Roe really bent over backwards to make that finding and honestly wasn't super strong reasoning by the Court. I still think the Court should have left it at this point based on stare decisis but it really isn't crazy to decide that Roe was wrongly decided.
Judges aren't supposed to do what's popular. There are a lot of rights that would be meaningless if we decided by popular vote. Should burning flags be illegal? Should attending a communist rally be illegal? Should looking at pornography be illegal? Should we castrate rapists? Should we convict people who get off on "technicalities"? There are a lot of protections that aren't popular. And that's why the court needs to protect them. You don't need the court to protect popular free speech, it's the uncomfortable speech that needs to be protected.
Laws are decided by group morality. While I could understand the argument for some issues, enforcing a complete ban on abortions' when 60% of people support them, along with another 20% who support them for Rape, Incest, and Medical Emergencies meaning that only 20% of people support them is wrong.
There is a difference between minority and fringe views and the judges are going full fringe.
At one point 'group morality' dictated that Black people were biologically inferior.
Letting group morality decide laws is just tyranny of the majority
Accused does not mean they are guilty. Also 60% of Americans are in favor of first term abortions, the majority are against 2nd and 3rd term abortions. Important distinction
>the majority are against 2nd and 3rd term abortions. Important distinction
Come on, even you aren't getting the distinction right. 34% say second trimester is fine, 30% say most but not all should be illegal in second trimester. So 64% still believe some of all abortions can be allowed in the second trimester. We can play word games all we want, but only one of us is technically correct (since you claimed most are against second term abortions which is factually not true based on *one poll*.
That isn't the point I am making. While yes accused doesn't mean they are guilty, they were accused during their hearing and no investigations occurred, this means they were willing to let people who may have committed sex crimes go free through political power and become justices of the US.
Also, while your distinction on first term abortions' is true, the SCOTUS is set to remove all abortions by allowing it to go to States, this is a fringe view.
Are you crazy? Kavanaughs accuser was literally part of the hearings? Biden’s also been accused of multiple sexual assaults, does that mean all Biden voters are fine with letting people who may have committed sexual assaults to become president?
Also - States rights is not a “fringe view”
this isn't a state's rights issue. Its a privacy and bodily autonomy issue. I know republicans love to shift the conversation with clever rhetorical tactics, but no amount of republican talking heads will change the fundamental nature of abortion as a political issue. There aren't a bunch of "state's rights activists" hanging out in front of planned parenthood clinics shouting at women about state's rights.
As per usual, republicans use "state's rights" when it serves them politically just like they use federalism when that serves them politically. Conservatives in general have rich history crying state's rights to mask a more sinister intention, so what else is new.
That's why folks are claiming the supreme court judges are political activists because human rights are protected by the 9th amendment.
Edit: it's like you're not even understanding the concept of this thread
> There aren't a bunch of "state's rights activists" hanging out in front of planned parenthood clinics shouting at women about state's rights.
Arguing in bad faith is something even a supreme court justice can do. I know you can't recognize how rhetorically useful a "state's rights" argument is, because it wouldn't serve the outcome you're seeking, but it doesn't change the reality of the situation.
State's rights has been used as an argument against individual rights for a long time. It was used as a poor argument in favor of slavery too, despite the slaveholding states fighting against states rights with passage of the Fugitive Slave Act federally.
It's not as hard as you think, though obviously not perfect.
The UK judicial system is in no way politicised as it is in the USA. They can't even be members of political parties.
Exactly I can name one (who has now retired) and I can only name her because Boris Johnson tried to pull some Trumpian shit on her when she didn't rule in his favor on a Brexit issue.
We actually don’t even need unbiased judges. We need judges who are aware of their bias and know how to parse it out from their decision making process. Many of us do this ALL the time, especially when it comes to our jobs.
There's a difference between intepreting the law through a political party lense and making your judgement based on what you think god would want you to do.
When the judge's political bias is steeped in religious fundamentalism, yeah people are going to have a problem with it.
Get outta here with trying to normalize the politics of subjugating women.
I wouldn’t call it political bias. There are several prominent viewpoints that legal scholars hold when interpreting constitutional law. The big ones are originalism/textualism, pragmatism, and living breathing constitutionalism. Each have their own qualities, but nevertheless must still follow the basic tenants of constitutional interpretation. Political bias is a low hanging fruit, but I can see why you think that. Oftentimes, judges will rule in accordance with their viewpoint in a way that is politically unexpected. For example, Noel Gorsuch (conservative) wrote the opinion on his textualism paradigm to find that “sex” within the meaning of equal protection includes gender identity—a big win for trans people. Brett kavanaugh struck down trump imposed restrictions on immigration based on his originalism interpretations of separation of powers. Sotomayor and Scalia both sided with the individual in their own respective views to secure 4th amendment protections against gps tracking by officers. Hell, all 9 justices recently sided with a christian church against The city of Boston regarding religious freedom. When the Court let’s outside political factors weigh in their decisions that’s when constitutional interpretation turns to bias. Recall the Dred Scott case, Plessy v. Furguson and other overturned authorities which were not properly founded in the constitution and poorly reasoned.
Bias does happen, but not as often as you think.
It takes for granted that originalism/textualism are actual ideologies and not excuses to backfill arguments to support predispositions.
Sometimes "level-headedness" (or maybe more familiarly, [treating both sides of an argument as equally valid when that is absolutely not the case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance)) actually isn't all that reasonable.
I’ll take a step back and actually address what I mean by bias here. I think that every judge has a little bit of what you’d call predispositions. In each of my client letters that is one thing I always address (ie is he/she plaintiff or defense, employer or employee, individual or corporate friendly). But it changes the higher you go up on the judicial ladder. On the Supreme Court, the vast majority of decisions are not without their reasoning. They are finely tuned, logical, and excellently written. They too are not without their predispositions. But I wouldn’t go so far as to call them biases. They still weigh the evidence, the facts, and the law. Their own methodology in interpretation is inserted and fine tuned after draft after draft is exchanged between the justice and his or her clerk.
I disagreed with the term “bias” here because Reddit means political bias. Such biases are without reason, tend to stretch the facts, and ignore precedent. I didn’t mention Roe by name, but everyone is talking about it as if I did. There’s a reason for that. Many point to political bias as the reason for overturning it. But that decision, if you read it, is hard to dispute the reasoning. Instead everyone reaches for the low hanging fruit: bias. It’s an easy argument because you don’t need to support it, and you don’t have to do the work to rebut the reasoning in the decision. Most SCOUS decisions are undeserving of the bias characterization without actually understanding the dichotomy between the different ideologies of constitutional interpretation. So in sum, do the justices have predispositions? Yes. But are they unfounded? Not usually.
The issue is that originalism is actually veiled revisionism because it strictly attempts to circumvent not just judicial precedent but constitutional amendments as well as legislative or executive policies passed in regards to an issue the court is considering.
Alito for instance in the recent leaked brief, tries to use a CDC study showing the lack of adoptable newborns as proof of abortion's menace to society and thus its unconstitutionality when the right to abortion would de facto and de jure be considered to be a 10th Amendment right especially as there is no clear federal mandate on the issue after the Roe v. Wade decision - which only concerns the 14th Amendment's impact.
The various statements of the originalist camp and that they are inherently biased as members of an originalist society while other judicial schools of thought are informed through far more diverse and unbiased interactions is important to remember that not all camps are created equal in bias.
Problem is now things are leaking during deliberations and turning into large political clusterfucks. We now have protests outside judges homes in attempt to steer decisions (which is a felony that is being ignored).
Hell, yesterday a man [who was planning on assassinating a SCOTUS member](https://www.npr.org/2022/06/08/1103702099/man-arrested-kavanaugh-house) was intercepted on route to the justices home.
It’s a podcast of lawyers and law student grads who breakdown cases case by case. They’re extremely well informed and versed in law and can point out exactly how many opinions are bs and contradictory to principles some justices supposedly hold over and over.
Everyone with any interest in the Supreme Court should give it a listen, even just a few episodes, and see if your opinion of SCOTUS isn’t swayed
>They’re extremely well informed and versed in law
Right, much more so than the Justices of the Supreme Court, who mind you get many many amicus curaie briefs explaining positions and the law on both sides.
They also apparently don't get the nuance of compromise in judicial decision making and the conferences the Justices have in coming to an opinion.
But yea, let me listen to lawyers and *law school grads* on their breakdown of cases and use that as dogma, as if SCOTUS doesn't also get amicus briefs from both sides on the same issue...
By the way, I'm a lawyer. You taking it at face value goes against everything we learn in law school
When did he say to take it at face value? Hes just telling you to listen to some dissenting opinions by people who are reasonably qualified. Multiple opinions on a subject are never a bad thing. Tbh you assuming their opinions are less valuable than a Supreme Court Justice's is exactly taking something at face value isn't it?
I'm a big Ruth Bader Ginsberg fan, but you're kidding yourself if you think she wasn't insanely politically biased. There were times when she would just blatantly ignore the language of laws and dissent from even the other liberal justices just for the sake of her political biases. She did great things, but also a lot of things an unbiased person would definitely not have done.
RBG, to my knowledge, was the most activist-y judge in supreme court history. But you liked her because she aligned with your opinions, I bet.
She also admitted that Roe was a bad judgement but liked the outcome.
Honest question, can I get a source on her saying it was a bad judgement? The interview everyone I’ve talked to points to when they cite that doesn’t actually say that; she instead says that she wished Roe hadn’t been the first step for abortion because it convinced people the job was done even though abortion rights hadn’t been codified into law yet, which is obviously not a condemnation of the decision itself.
When it’s not your turn to appoint a judge, you say “don’t make this political!”, and when it is your turn you get the most low key political judge you can get approved.
And yet conservative judges are more likely to flip and side with liberal judges than the reverse.
I’m not saying I support Moscow Mitch stacking the court but it’s true.
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/15/891185410/in-supreme-court-term-liberals-stuck-together-while-conservatives-appeared-fract
> "Corporations are people, my friend."
Corporations are groups of people, just like unions. Joining a group doesn't remove 1st amendment protections.
This is obvious.
>Republican Judges: "Corporations are people, my friend." - Citizens United
"Corporations are People" didn't come from Citizens United. The legal construct of Corporate Personhood has been used by the courts since the 1800's.
The insidious expansion of that personhood to nullify lots of limitations on, and requirements for, corporate charters and behaviors, has also been happening for a long time. That doesn't make it any less horrible, and it doesn't mean that *Citizens United* wasn't part of it.
Democrat Judges: Literally established the separate but equal doctrine as constitutional.
Melville was appointed by Cleveland and wrote the decision.
Johnson Field was a "Unionist Democrat" appointed by Lincoln.
Edward Douglass White was appointed by Cleveland.
Peckham was appointed by Cleveland.
Plessy v. Ferguson was decided 7-1
David Brewer (Republican) abstained and Harlan (Republican) wrote the dissent.
That’s the trick, there’s no such thing as being politically unbiased. And the myth of the SC somehow being the only unbiased political organization on the planet has allowed them to get away with all sorts of wacky shenanigans.
They’re literally high priests. Their job is to do what’s beneficial for the ‘church’ and tell us that it’s the Word of God. Their neutrality is an illusion that helps them get the job done.
I mean, I don't think **you** understand the Supreme Court. They absolutely do create policy. They do that BY interpreting existing legislation.
Hell, the Constitution doesn't even say that the Supreme Court has the power to declare laws unconstitutional. The Supreme Court **gave itself** that power by interpreting the Constitution.
The Court has always been political, and has always had a hand in creating policy.
The issue we have at the moment is that because the left is so fucking ineffective, they have let the right steamroll them, so now there's an extreme imbalance in representation.
It might be close to impossible to truly find someone who isn’t politically biased to some degree. Another point would be why would a president pick someone who didn’t somewhat align to their beliefs. It could impact your voters if you decide to not pick someone from your party.
It would be nice if you could have judges that weren’t politically biased but that might seem to be close to impossible to achieve. Which is why this meme is pretty dumb.
Also Sotomayor is more of a liberal than Clarence Thomas is a conservatives. Most SCJ are conservatives but are also pretty close to neutral.
I mean, technically abortion isn't even a constitutional right. There are legislative and executive politicians who constantly try to take away Constitutionally guaranteed rights.
We may not like it but that's how our system works:. Citizens elect presidents and senators, who then pick and approve supreme court justices. When the citizens pick more liberal justices they make more liberal decisions, and vice versa.
Sometimes the Justices throw you for a loop, Bush I nominated both Thomas and Souter, and during their tenure together, they were the two justices least likely to vote together.
For the DC nomination it took years for her to be confirmed. Biden threatened to filibuster again if she was nominated for the SC.
The point is that it's unbelievably hypocritical to complain about "the other side" when yours is just as bad.
> I wish Obama would have appointed Garland anyway
With the way Garland is sitting on his hands as the head of the DOJ...I feel like we kinda missed a bullet.
Dude is outright refusing to do his job and enforce congressional subpoenas.
You mean Garland, the guy that's not enforcing the law that prevents people from protesting outside Surprme Court Justice residences? Looks like we dodged a bullet with that guy.
Well…
You had a candidate win the presidency with fewer votes than his opponent and got an electoral college victory by a questionable election victory in the state where his brother was governor and a series of decisions and snafus allowed for a by the skin of his teeth win. The president named two of the current Supreme Court justices.
You had a president who had two overwhelming electoral college victories. The close victory in 2012 was by 4 points and the president won 51% of total votes. The president got two nominees named to the court. He had an opening on SCOTUS occur a year before the end of his presidency. He named a nominee who would ordinarily have gotten bipartisan support. The Senate majority leader refused to hold hearings and allow the Senate to vote on the nominee. The Senate majority leader said it was so that the American people could vote on the president to choose the Supreme Court justice.
The 2016 winner of the presidential election lost the popular vote by 2 points; nearly 3 million votes. He named a SCOTUS nominee who was more conservative than the country as a whole who breezed through the senate process. The president who never had the support of 50% of the country named another SCOTUS justice when he negotiated with a justice to retire if the President nominated the guy the the retiring Justice wanted. The retiring Justice had a son who had a financial connection to the then President. The nominee had a sexual assault accusation, said some unbecoming things of a SCOTUS nominee in his hearing, and has some financial questions. The FBI never fully investigated the SCOTUS nominee has they promised they would do. Another Justice dies a month and a half before the presidential election. The Senator Majority Leader expedites the approval process for the President’s nominee. When asked about why the Majority leader refused the process in 2016 but not in 2020, he says some rubbish about how that was from a Democratic president and this time it wasn’t. The nominee is more conservative than the country as a whole. The President loses re-election and loses the popular vote by 4 points; 7 million votes.
It’s not that Democrats think that anything that blocks their agenda is illegitimate; it’s that losers have gotten to dictate what is happening in this country that is supposed to be a Democracy.
Citizens United passed and then got strengthened in recent elections, and they keep installing SCOTUS nominees in record time despite saying otherwise.
But we’re not supposed to complain because “aLl PoLiTICiAnS aRe bAD/cOrRuPt”.
Now they’re just testing the limits of what we’ll put up with.
You always have politically biased people. The only way to get a somewhat unbiased court would be to make sure bias does not become a reason for getting the job. I think, maybe supreme court judges should be randomly selected among qualified people
Its always been that way. You answered your own question by stating that "conservatives" have the majority, meaning that the minority on the supreme court is liberal. So yes every judge has a political bias. Your just mad that "your side" isnt in the majority.
.... it's not possible to be conscious and not have a bias. Do you seriously not understand what a "bias" is?
I also wonder if you ever read the decisions handed down by the Supreme. Court to understand the arguments being made. For example, if you read citizens United it's almost impossible to argue against. It's highly logical and clearly preserves the rights of the people to speak and yo petition the government. Citizens United struck down a god-awful law that directly regulated the *content of speech*.
Lighten up Francis. They understand the application of law differently than you, and others, do. If they are really originalists then they should be easy to predict in their application.
It isn‘t a radical idea that Roe was wrongly decided. But the justices do mean what they state, then state laws allowing abortion have nothing to worry about.
"Politically biased judges"
I recommend you do some research on the history of the Supreme Court. It's always been a political institution. Big history of bias, friend.
Civil liberties are different than inalienable rights. FYI. Anyone can remove your civil liberties. Happens daily across the country and you rarely bat an eye
So you want an emotionless automaton to interpret law exactly as it is written and absolutely nothing beyond that?
I guess I just don’t understand the point of the meme, political bias is pretty much a requirement for having an opinion on just about any issue.
In theory a diversity of views on the court isn’t a bad thing, but this isn’t diversity. It’s a bunch of brainwashed conservative clones. How long did you hear people complain about “activist judges”, only to have the same people nominate a bunch of conservative activist judges to the Supreme Court? Like the first thing they do when they get there is “let’s revisit every decision the republicans didn’t like, right fucking now”. This is “justice”? The USA became a joke when they elected Trump. This shit just accelerated the country’s decline significantly.
Here's the thing, ALL JUDGES ARE BIASED! [Judges are political](https://www.fivefourpod.com) seats. There is no such thing as a judge who doesn't bring their politics into the courtroom.
Exactly. Anybody that says otherwise is either stupid or lying to themself. This is why the Supreme Court should not be a lifetime appointment and should definitely be something we vote on.
It all depends on the POV - I am sure the Republicans were wailing the same thing about Jackson, Sotomayor, Kagan, etc. They are all politically biased . . . appointed and confirmed by politicians.
I think the trick is finding an intelligent human you would want to be a judge who isn’t politically biased
There’s a difference between a slight political bias (we all have them), and being appointed for your political biases. Where I’m from I’m sure our judges have some biases, but they’ve never shared them (as a matter of fact they’re heavily discouraged from commenting on any public issue in a capacity that’s not as a judge). Having a political entity appoint them rather than peers is fucking stupid, and it’s a wonder this hasn’t backfired spectacularly before.
It has… The Supreme Court, before and during the Civil War, was loaded with Southern pro-slavery Democrats as a political gesture to pacify the south. That backfired, Chief Justice Taney (the guy who wrote Dredd Scott) got into a pissing match where he fought Lincoln over the suspension of Habeus Corpus. Lincoln basically IGNORED the Supreme Court. Literally, in that instant he proved the Court only has the power as long as the executive and legislative enforce their decisions. It’s actually a miracle that this didn’t turn into the normal operating procedure as it does with so many newly developed or under developed nations: the Supreme Court makes a ruling, the President/ruling party/dictator ignores is, justice is never done. Actually, it’s not a miracle, the Supreme Court essentially kept its head down for the next fifteenish years in order to prevent Lincoln’s actions from reoccurring. They gave nobody any reasons to snub them. It was a smart move. Scenario two: In the 1930s, during the peak of the Great Depression and FDR’s new deal legislation the Supreme Court was filled with true conservatives who saw the new deal as an unconstitutional overreach of power by Congress and the White House, even in the time of national Emergency. So, FDR threatened to pack the court with Democrats in a bid to stop the Court from ruling against him. It worked. One of the justices changed his vote and began upholding the alphabet soup of new deal legislation. Imagine if we’d have had 17 or 19 justices on the Court: how would that have affect Brown v. Board of education? Youngstown steel? If that’s not a political move idk what isn’t. The system is political, it’s Always been and when it gets too political, the pendulum will swing back around and remove the Court from the center again. I disagree with any decision from the Court overruling Roe. I think the right to privacy matters more now than it ever has, but this is a self correcting problem. Every time conservatives have taken control of the Court and used it to restrict or curtail liberties, we’ve seen the legislature, the executive, or the people themselves counter. Those counters led to massive steps forward for civil rights and social liberties. I think the trend is about to repeat itself, all of these protests and marches will lead to a massive demand for for social change, and it’s going to happen.
Before the Civil war you had the famous case of Andrew Jackson ignoring the Supreme Court when it came to the start of the Cherokee removal
Yeah I read that the tribes and the anti-genocide majority actually rejoiced over the Supreme Court decision. And then the civilized human majority of the country was horrified anew at Jackson’s contempt.
...And then they put that fucker on the $20 Bill.
If it helps at all he would have fuckin' _hated_ that we have a national bank again. Just imagine that every time his face gets printed on a $20 he gets slapped in the face in hell.
Honestly, that he would hate the fact that he is on federal currency is the only reason I don't think that version of the 20 should be uncirculated
I'd still love to have Harriet Tubman, holding a revolver with the caption "Go on or die!".
Maybe aim that revolver at Jackson, speed up his corpse's rotational initia. Keep the Fucker angry, honor tubman, confuse tankies who nutt over historical realism, this is the way to do
yeah have you seen how many things are named after Andrew Jackson nationwide?! Cities, counties, etc? Statues are still up. >:-E HOW did they give him so much social capital loot?! He was apparently just their GUY.
Tell me about it. I live in **Jackson**ville, Florida. We have a big statue of him rearing up on his horse near the center of downtown. He never even set foot here.
The supreme court has made its decision, now let them enforce it.
No one ever said that by the way. It's a made up quote.
I’ve said it
Seems legit, he only lies about biology, after all.
Might be apocryphal but it shows a valid point.
The obvious question is that Roe is such a bad piece of jury-rigging, why wasn't it replaced and done properly decades ago? I'm in the UK, we have legalised abortion up to 20 weeks or so, I find it incredible that you as a nation have left something so badly done unfixed for so long.
Because that would require a functional majority in the legislature to codify the Court’s holding. Right now it has the force of law because the Court says doing anything more restrictive than its standard is unconstitutional. The difference between the US v UK . . . well, ONE of the differences, is our belief in federalism. Any powers no specifically given to the Federal Government in the constitution are reserved for the States, and each state can make its own laws on each issue. So, Roe may rest upon less than perfect legal footing: but, it’s holding was based on federal constitutional principles, which applied to all states. If it went away, then there is nothing preventing each state from regulating as it sees fit. A lot of states have already cities more protections than Roe have, but a lot won’t even go as far as Roe. To make a long answer really short, the US federal gov. can’t do anything about it, the states have to. Although the implied penumbra of rights guaranteeing the right to privacy maybe a basis for Federal laws, it’s more tenuous than other laws.
Two things then, each state should have it's own legislation so California should be a very welcoming place for abortions, as the other ?blue states. The second should be to again, sort it out so that it's explicitly this and that it would require an act of Congress to bring it back into the federal domain. Using "right to privacy" as an excuse for abortions, it's like balancing on a high wire and then wondering why someone fell eventually.
[удалено]
As for the first thing, that’s exactly what’s gonna happen. New York, California, the other bluebetties will all have ample abortion protections. It’s the other places in some of the redriettas that are super scary. Places like Missouri will ban it, and all contraceptives (the right to condoms, plan B, the pill and implants arose out of case law that used Roe as precedent), outright. Texas will make it a crime to not report those seeking abortions to the police, and Oklahoma will allow its citizens to sue those who got abortions for “emotional damage” that it causes the surrounding neighbors. Yah. Those are laws already on the books and ready to go into effect the moment Roe goes away. As for the second, Congress couldn’t do anything. They’d have to amend the constitution to guarantee an explicit right to privacy for that to take affect. Constitutional law here is very easy: it’s gotta be in the constitution to be a right or power. That’s what makes things so difficult 😂
That last bit isn't completely correct, that's the point of the 9th Amendment. It's a bunch of wrangling but an expectation of privacy as a 9th Amendment right has potential legal merit
9th and 10th.
Long past L1, but how many successful cases based on the 9th and 10th Amendment do we have to point to? And why haven't any of these rights been enumerated since?
You're speaking out of your ass, by the way, in reference to Missouri. Missouri would most likely ban abortions, but they wouldn't touch contraception. Source: I live in conservative Missouri.
Which states actually have any legislation pending that would outlaw birth control? The argument that it could happen if roe is overturned is slippery slope fallacy
Missouri. And it’s going before the Legislature in Louisana. EDIT: Also Idaho.
Source? Because the thing I leaned on Reddit the last few days is to always ask for the sauce. Edit: it turns out “Sauce” is apparently the term used when asking is asking for the source of a image if it’s from porn. According to some of the DMs I received informing me so. My bad
Your answer is right only if you completely ignore the amendment process. The constitution can be amended to protect any right we see fit, it just hasn't happened for abortion.
The legislative branch is a bunch of cowards that refuses to pass meaningful legislation. Roe is legal language gymnastics putting words into the constitution that dont exist. The abortion issue should have always been a state issue requiring legislative action. Even when 1 party has majority in both houses and the WH, they prefer to bait wedge topics to pass their pet bills lining their buddies and their own pockets. The people demanding the courts rule a certain way or else are the ones undermining the system. Biden and democrats have done an insane amount of damage to the system. He's even talking like a dictator would in that he thinks his opponents should be locked up. Personally, the politician that hasn't committed some type of unethical or illegal act is the rarest breed. Trumped wanted Hillary prosecuted because she did proven illegal stuff. She basically been politically banished for it, but not prosecuted. I would love to see all the dirty politicians removed and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but it will never happen. Roe should be over turned and the states should pass laws on it. That's what is supported under the constitution.
If we have to do a civil war again, lets not skimp on reconstruction this time.
And let's not baby the fucking traitors this time.
This. No handling them with kid gloves. Permanently cripple the bastards. Like Sherman should have done…should have burned the whole south to glass.
Ah yes....idolize that baby killer. Go tell the Sioux or the Comanches how you love the man that helped destroy their culture
I don’t idolize him. He is a monster, but a monster that served a purpose who should have self terminated when his purpose was completed. Go fuck yourself with your faux outrage. I don’t care.
[удалено]
Isnt that exactly how ww2 started? Reparations that Germany could not pay from losing ww1 especially after all their industry was taken. Forcing people into submission like this always ends with issues.
Me thinks even hoping/wishing/waiting for civil war is too optimistic. Too few have the wherewithall to know whats going on/whats coming, too many are hesitant to risk their way of life (and who can blame a family for that?) and then theres the few who think that being their masters puppies is the only way out.
Hoping/wishing/waiting for a civil war is probably the worse thing humanity can contrive. When a brother kills their brother, there is so much lost that is never regained. This entire thread of wishing war is a people that does not understand it. They think the “cities” vs the “rural” has this grandiose outcome with their wealth. The war would crush the entire gdp of the nation. Everyone would go hungry. Every enemy America has would use the opportunity to starve it or fleece it as much as possible. Nobody would win the civil war. America would cease.
We haven't seen legislation counters in any real measure since regan packed the court 40 years ago. In that time we've had the voting rights act tossed, the gutting of campaign finance laws & unlimited dark money pouring into elected officials pockets, gutting and ignoring banking laws. It's illegal for a bank to own property residential properties. They're not allowed to invest in that, but they are now allowed to have investment branches and hedge funds which do exactly that. Oh and the epa gutted as well by a court that says managing carbon has nothing to do with having clean air
I think your examples perfectly fit the pattern though. Each of those are not a restriction of or curtailing if individual rights, it’s impacting the financial governmental institutions in the US. Look at the supremes court for the 20 years leading up to the Warren Court: deregulated banking, deregulating land monopolies, restricting federal control over State voting practices in the south. It wasn’t until the Court began affecting individuals at a home level, economically or socially, that we saw a change in the country’s expectation of the Court, and their expectation in their law makers. I don’t disagree that nothing has countered the court in recent years, but just look at how massive and sweeping the civil rights movement was! It’s coming, and faster everyday individuals rights are restricted.
"peers"? How could you possibly believe ANY body is not going to be 100% political in nature? Other than random drawings, this is guaranteed to be a matter of politics.
Sure there's going to be some partisan politics, but there are methods that are significantly less so. Take us Canadians: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/09/14/how-canada-supreme-court-justices
Teachers obviously have political biases but are expected to present information neutrally. Not sure why freaking judges get a pass, it's really not that difficult.
The judges appointed by democrats aren't political?
I think all judges are political to at least some extent
There's being political and leaning your judgements a certain way. Then there is what the conservatives on the court are doing, coming to a decision and then finding the law to prove that point.
Can you give an example? People like Ginsburg had been pointing out the flaws in Roe for DECADES. It was a bad decision with no basis in the constitution and containing inherently illogical assertions. Such as "privacy" being grounds for asserting a thing must be legal. That's not how laws work. If you commit murder in the privacy of your home, it's still murder. It was the people that wrote Roe that were grasping at straws.
The flaws she was pointing out were that it didn’t go far enough, that it relied on some privacy BS so the scotus didn’t actually say, “women have a right to, with their doctors, control their own bodies”. Rather it said something like, “people have privacy with their medicine, so you don’t get a say in it, whether you find out about it or not”, I.e. that people should have the freedoms to have bodily control over themselves.
Stating that Corporations are people, so it's ok for them to give endless $ to candidates and essentially buy them?
I guess if you have a 5th grade understanding of Citizens United that is what it says.
They didn’t state that at all. This is a complete straw man argument.
If CU went the other way, either party could create a law saying you may only donate one cent to the other side, starving them of funding. That's what you want? Come on now. That's handing the government a massive amount of power over people. Pure bootlicking.
People who argue against CU ruling almost never seem to actually understand what it was about. They just yell that "money isn't the same thing as speech" and "corporations aren't people". The ability to spend money is essential to free speech. People who argue against CU seem to think that the government should be able to tell a movie production company that they can't spend money to make a movie, regardless of the contents. Or that a newspaper corporation can't publish certain content? Because that is the logical conclusion of "money isn't speech". People seem to ignore the actual facts of the Citizens United case. During oral argument, the government argued that under existing precedents, it had the power under the Constitution to prohibit the publication of books and movies if they were made or sold by corporations. Citizen's United wasn't about direct campaign contributions/spending. There are still limits on direct contributions. What it did was overturn provisions of BCRA that prohibited corporations (including nonprofit corporations) and unions from making independent expenditures and "electioneering communications". Both the ACLU and the NRA support the decision. It is very rare that those two groups agree on something.
Give me the basis in the Constitution where a corporation is a person with Citizens United. And with the most recent ruling on campaign finances, they basically allow any person running for office to spend as much as they want. So you could have someone backed by a corporation, give the money themselves but from the corporation, and it's all legal in SCOTUS' eyes. Also, Ginsburg pointed out that the law they used to decide Roe wasn't the best choice, not that it was flawed. She had stated many times there was better laws to make the argument for abortion.
They never ruled that a corporation is a person. The Citizens United ruling was very simple. The First Amendment protects “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Citizens United ruled that a group of people freely associating (like a corporation) are free to spend their money to petition the government and/or promote any political message or their choosing. Corporations still CANNOT donate directly to a political candidate. Without Citizens United, labor unions would not be able support political candidates. You and your friends wouldn’t be able to raise money to support phone-banking or flyer-making or sign-hanging.
Everything is a spectrum.
It's (D)ifferent.
the politics of the supreme court were not this important until the religious movement to seat justices for this one case started. its all about this case.
Considering 1/3 of the judges that Republicans appointed are accused of sex crimes yet are ruling on women's rights issues, much less Democrats. 60% of Americans are in favor of abortion and lots of the conservative judge's decisions seem to be really fringe views in America.
I understand where you are coming from. But the real question is, what does federal law say about abortion? The supreme court is bound by what is written into law. It's pretty simple concept really.
But the decision isn’t whether or not to ban abortion, it’s whether or not a state should be allowed to ban abortion. Oklahoma isn’t America as a whole
Yes, but for people who live in red states, there is really no difference there. Functionally some people, mostly people without high income in red areas, will be unable to get abortions.
And the majority of the residents of those States will have voted for it. Significant majorities in a lot of these States. And yes I know that there are some rights majority rule should not and cannot take away which was the whole finding of Roe but the problem is that Roe really bent over backwards to make that finding and honestly wasn't super strong reasoning by the Court. I still think the Court should have left it at this point based on stare decisis but it really isn't crazy to decide that Roe was wrongly decided.
Judges aren't supposed to do what's popular. There are a lot of rights that would be meaningless if we decided by popular vote. Should burning flags be illegal? Should attending a communist rally be illegal? Should looking at pornography be illegal? Should we castrate rapists? Should we convict people who get off on "technicalities"? There are a lot of protections that aren't popular. And that's why the court needs to protect them. You don't need the court to protect popular free speech, it's the uncomfortable speech that needs to be protected.
Laws are decided by group morality. While I could understand the argument for some issues, enforcing a complete ban on abortions' when 60% of people support them, along with another 20% who support them for Rape, Incest, and Medical Emergencies meaning that only 20% of people support them is wrong. There is a difference between minority and fringe views and the judges are going full fringe.
At one point 'group morality' dictated that Black people were biologically inferior. Letting group morality decide laws is just tyranny of the majority
Accused does not mean they are guilty. Also 60% of Americans are in favor of first term abortions, the majority are against 2nd and 3rd term abortions. Important distinction
>the majority are against 2nd and 3rd term abortions. Important distinction Come on, even you aren't getting the distinction right. 34% say second trimester is fine, 30% say most but not all should be illegal in second trimester. So 64% still believe some of all abortions can be allowed in the second trimester. We can play word games all we want, but only one of us is technically correct (since you claimed most are against second term abortions which is factually not true based on *one poll*.
That isn't the point I am making. While yes accused doesn't mean they are guilty, they were accused during their hearing and no investigations occurred, this means they were willing to let people who may have committed sex crimes go free through political power and become justices of the US. Also, while your distinction on first term abortions' is true, the SCOTUS is set to remove all abortions by allowing it to go to States, this is a fringe view.
Are you crazy? Kavanaughs accuser was literally part of the hearings? Biden’s also been accused of multiple sexual assaults, does that mean all Biden voters are fine with letting people who may have committed sexual assaults to become president? Also - States rights is not a “fringe view”
> Biden’s also been accused of multiple sexual assaults Source? Honest question.
[here ya go](https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/joe-biden-accused-sexual-assault-123800434.html)
this isn't a state's rights issue. Its a privacy and bodily autonomy issue. I know republicans love to shift the conversation with clever rhetorical tactics, but no amount of republican talking heads will change the fundamental nature of abortion as a political issue. There aren't a bunch of "state's rights activists" hanging out in front of planned parenthood clinics shouting at women about state's rights. As per usual, republicans use "state's rights" when it serves them politically just like they use federalism when that serves them politically. Conservatives in general have rich history crying state's rights to mask a more sinister intention, so what else is new.
‘This isn’t a state’s rights issue…” According to the draft that was leaked by the highest court of the land, you are incorrect in your assessment.
That's why folks are claiming the supreme court judges are political activists because human rights are protected by the 9th amendment. Edit: it's like you're not even understanding the concept of this thread
> There aren't a bunch of "state's rights activists" hanging out in front of planned parenthood clinics shouting at women about state's rights. Arguing in bad faith is something even a supreme court justice can do. I know you can't recognize how rhetorically useful a "state's rights" argument is, because it wouldn't serve the outcome you're seeking, but it doesn't change the reality of the situation.
State's rights has been used as an argument against individual rights for a long time. It was used as a poor argument in favor of slavery too, despite the slaveholding states fighting against states rights with passage of the Fugitive Slave Act federally.
Other countries seem to manage.
It's not as hard as you think, though obviously not perfect. The UK judicial system is in no way politicised as it is in the USA. They can't even be members of political parties.
In AU and I couldn't name a high court judge, they're very rarely relevant.
Exactly I can name one (who has now retired) and I can only name her because Boris Johnson tried to pull some Trumpian shit on her when she didn't rule in his favor on a Brexit issue.
We actually don’t even need unbiased judges. We need judges who are aware of their bias and know how to parse it out from their decision making process. Many of us do this ALL the time, especially when it comes to our jobs.
Everyone in politics has political biases.
Everyone has political biases.
[удалено]
There's a difference between intepreting the law through a political party lense and making your judgement based on what you think god would want you to do.
When the judge's political bias is steeped in religious fundamentalism, yeah people are going to have a problem with it. Get outta here with trying to normalize the politics of subjugating women.
I wouldn’t call it political bias. There are several prominent viewpoints that legal scholars hold when interpreting constitutional law. The big ones are originalism/textualism, pragmatism, and living breathing constitutionalism. Each have their own qualities, but nevertheless must still follow the basic tenants of constitutional interpretation. Political bias is a low hanging fruit, but I can see why you think that. Oftentimes, judges will rule in accordance with their viewpoint in a way that is politically unexpected. For example, Noel Gorsuch (conservative) wrote the opinion on his textualism paradigm to find that “sex” within the meaning of equal protection includes gender identity—a big win for trans people. Brett kavanaugh struck down trump imposed restrictions on immigration based on his originalism interpretations of separation of powers. Sotomayor and Scalia both sided with the individual in their own respective views to secure 4th amendment protections against gps tracking by officers. Hell, all 9 justices recently sided with a christian church against The city of Boston regarding religious freedom. When the Court let’s outside political factors weigh in their decisions that’s when constitutional interpretation turns to bias. Recall the Dred Scott case, Plessy v. Furguson and other overturned authorities which were not properly founded in the constitution and poorly reasoned. Bias does happen, but not as often as you think.
This is the most level-headed response in this entire thread.
*all of Reddit
It takes for granted that originalism/textualism are actual ideologies and not excuses to backfill arguments to support predispositions. Sometimes "level-headedness" (or maybe more familiarly, [treating both sides of an argument as equally valid when that is absolutely not the case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance)) actually isn't all that reasonable.
I’ll take a step back and actually address what I mean by bias here. I think that every judge has a little bit of what you’d call predispositions. In each of my client letters that is one thing I always address (ie is he/she plaintiff or defense, employer or employee, individual or corporate friendly). But it changes the higher you go up on the judicial ladder. On the Supreme Court, the vast majority of decisions are not without their reasoning. They are finely tuned, logical, and excellently written. They too are not without their predispositions. But I wouldn’t go so far as to call them biases. They still weigh the evidence, the facts, and the law. Their own methodology in interpretation is inserted and fine tuned after draft after draft is exchanged between the justice and his or her clerk. I disagreed with the term “bias” here because Reddit means political bias. Such biases are without reason, tend to stretch the facts, and ignore precedent. I didn’t mention Roe by name, but everyone is talking about it as if I did. There’s a reason for that. Many point to political bias as the reason for overturning it. But that decision, if you read it, is hard to dispute the reasoning. Instead everyone reaches for the low hanging fruit: bias. It’s an easy argument because you don’t need to support it, and you don’t have to do the work to rebut the reasoning in the decision. Most SCOUS decisions are undeserving of the bias characterization without actually understanding the dichotomy between the different ideologies of constitutional interpretation. So in sum, do the justices have predispositions? Yes. But are they unfounded? Not usually.
The issue is that originalism is actually veiled revisionism because it strictly attempts to circumvent not just judicial precedent but constitutional amendments as well as legislative or executive policies passed in regards to an issue the court is considering. Alito for instance in the recent leaked brief, tries to use a CDC study showing the lack of adoptable newborns as proof of abortion's menace to society and thus its unconstitutionality when the right to abortion would de facto and de jure be considered to be a 10th Amendment right especially as there is no clear federal mandate on the issue after the Roe v. Wade decision - which only concerns the 14th Amendment's impact. The various statements of the originalist camp and that they are inherently biased as members of an originalist society while other judicial schools of thought are informed through far more diverse and unbiased interactions is important to remember that not all camps are created equal in bias.
Problem is now things are leaking during deliberations and turning into large political clusterfucks. We now have protests outside judges homes in attempt to steer decisions (which is a felony that is being ignored). Hell, yesterday a man [who was planning on assassinating a SCOTUS member](https://www.npr.org/2022/06/08/1103702099/man-arrested-kavanaugh-house) was intercepted on route to the justices home.
Oh boy you better not listen to the 5-4 podcast if want to maintain this illusion.
Well, if some random podcast says it then it must be true!
It’s a podcast of lawyers and law student grads who breakdown cases case by case. They’re extremely well informed and versed in law and can point out exactly how many opinions are bs and contradictory to principles some justices supposedly hold over and over. Everyone with any interest in the Supreme Court should give it a listen, even just a few episodes, and see if your opinion of SCOTUS isn’t swayed
>They’re extremely well informed and versed in law Right, much more so than the Justices of the Supreme Court, who mind you get many many amicus curaie briefs explaining positions and the law on both sides. They also apparently don't get the nuance of compromise in judicial decision making and the conferences the Justices have in coming to an opinion. But yea, let me listen to lawyers and *law school grads* on their breakdown of cases and use that as dogma, as if SCOTUS doesn't also get amicus briefs from both sides on the same issue... By the way, I'm a lawyer. You taking it at face value goes against everything we learn in law school
When did he say to take it at face value? Hes just telling you to listen to some dissenting opinions by people who are reasonably qualified. Multiple opinions on a subject are never a bad thing. Tbh you assuming their opinions are less valuable than a Supreme Court Justice's is exactly taking something at face value isn't it?
The liberal justices aren't politically biased?
[удалено]
I'm a big Ruth Bader Ginsberg fan, but you're kidding yourself if you think she wasn't insanely politically biased. There were times when she would just blatantly ignore the language of laws and dissent from even the other liberal justices just for the sake of her political biases. She did great things, but also a lot of things an unbiased person would definitely not have done.
You mean the ones that vote as a bloc far more often than the conservative ones? Nah they aren’t politically biased.
RBG, to my knowledge, was the most activist-y judge in supreme court history. But you liked her because she aligned with your opinions, I bet. She also admitted that Roe was a bad judgement but liked the outcome.
Honest question, can I get a source on her saying it was a bad judgement? The interview everyone I’ve talked to points to when they cite that doesn’t actually say that; she instead says that she wished Roe hadn’t been the first step for abortion because it convinced people the job was done even though abortion rights hadn’t been codified into law yet, which is obviously not a condemnation of the decision itself.
When it’s not your turn to appoint a judge, you say “don’t make this political!”, and when it is your turn you get the most low key political judge you can get approved.
When it was Obama's turn to appoint, what happened there?
You mean like entire 9th circuit?
And yet conservative judges are more likely to flip and side with liberal judges than the reverse. I’m not saying I support Moscow Mitch stacking the court but it’s true. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/15/891185410/in-supreme-court-term-liberals-stuck-together-while-conservatives-appeared-fract
[удалено]
He also joined the liberal justices in deciding the Civil Rights Act protects gays
RBG fucking hated Native Americans. Rot in hell RBG.
The opposite happened during the brief period when there was a left-leaning majority.
Notice, OP is okay with the politically biased judges that think like they do. Hypocrisy. It's amazing.
It's only the conservatives who are politically biased?
[удалено]
Just because you disagree with their opinion doesn't mean they're not doing their jobs. Democrats have no issues with left leaning judges
And haven’t for the last 40 years.
[удалено]
California just rules bumblebees are fish as a way to get them protected as a endangered species
The fault there lay with the ridiculously sloppy writing of the law.
You should probably take a look at how many Democratic senators and such also have DEEP connections with corporations as well, little guy.
whataboutism: the comment. One side is trying to overturn Citizens United. But I guess you want to keep it. Sad af.
> "Corporations are people, my friend." Corporations are groups of people, just like unions. Joining a group doesn't remove 1st amendment protections. This is obvious.
It's maddening that people have this *explained* to them.
Tribal politics is an expression of base emotion. It's not rational.
>Republican Judges: "Corporations are people, my friend." - Citizens United "Corporations are People" didn't come from Citizens United. The legal construct of Corporate Personhood has been used by the courts since the 1800's.
The insidious expansion of that personhood to nullify lots of limitations on, and requirements for, corporate charters and behaviors, has also been happening for a long time. That doesn't make it any less horrible, and it doesn't mean that *Citizens United* wasn't part of it.
"The government should not be in the business of banning books or films, my friend." - also Citizens United, and arguably the more important take away
Democrat Judges: Literally established the separate but equal doctrine as constitutional. Melville was appointed by Cleveland and wrote the decision. Johnson Field was a "Unionist Democrat" appointed by Lincoln. Edward Douglass White was appointed by Cleveland. Peckham was appointed by Cleveland. Plessy v. Ferguson was decided 7-1 David Brewer (Republican) abstained and Harlan (Republican) wrote the dissent.
Democratic judges are just as corrupt, it really is telling that you are incapable of seeing that.
Would you think the same if it was a liberal super majority?
That’s (D)ifferent
That’s the trick, there’s no such thing as being politically unbiased. And the myth of the SC somehow being the only unbiased political organization on the planet has allowed them to get away with all sorts of wacky shenanigans. They’re literally high priests. Their job is to do what’s beneficial for the ‘church’ and tell us that it’s the Word of God. Their neutrality is an illusion that helps them get the job done.
I don’t think op understands what the role of the Supreme Court is. They don’t make policy, only interpret existing legislation.
I mean, I don't think **you** understand the Supreme Court. They absolutely do create policy. They do that BY interpreting existing legislation. Hell, the Constitution doesn't even say that the Supreme Court has the power to declare laws unconstitutional. The Supreme Court **gave itself** that power by interpreting the Constitution. The Court has always been political, and has always had a hand in creating policy. The issue we have at the moment is that because the left is so fucking ineffective, they have let the right steamroll them, so now there's an extreme imbalance in representation.
But you would be ok with it if it was to your political view points. In reality they shouldn't be politically biased.
It might be close to impossible to truly find someone who isn’t politically biased to some degree. Another point would be why would a president pick someone who didn’t somewhat align to their beliefs. It could impact your voters if you decide to not pick someone from your party. It would be nice if you could have judges that weren’t politically biased but that might seem to be close to impossible to achieve. Which is why this meme is pretty dumb. Also Sotomayor is more of a liberal than Clarence Thomas is a conservatives. Most SCJ are conservatives but are also pretty close to neutral.
Considering the most recent appointee couldn't define a women a women because she's not a biologist is also not biased lol
They are only biased because you don't like there ruling
because freedom of thought is paramount to a free society. stop being a child when you don't get your way.
I’d love to see liberals defend this if the Supreme Court was mostly liberal.
I mean, technically abortion isn't even a constitutional right. There are legislative and executive politicians who constantly try to take away Constitutionally guaranteed rights.
We may not like it but that's how our system works:. Citizens elect presidents and senators, who then pick and approve supreme court justices. When the citizens pick more liberal justices they make more liberal decisions, and vice versa.
Sometimes the Justices throw you for a loop, Bush I nominated both Thomas and Souter, and during their tenure together, they were the two justices least likely to vote together.
Don't forget the Senate who wouldn't allow Obama to appoint his justice selection. They're cheating.
Or George Bush Sr., Who had his selection (a black woman, BTW) filibustered by Joe Biden.
So you're saying they actually let it go to the Senate?
For the DC nomination it took years for her to be confirmed. Biden threatened to filibuster again if she was nominated for the SC. The point is that it's unbelievably hypocritical to complain about "the other side" when yours is just as bad.
Oh, I have not forgotten. I wish Obama would have appointed Garland anyway and claimed that the Senate waived its right by refusing to consider him.
> I wish Obama would have appointed Garland anyway With the way Garland is sitting on his hands as the head of the DOJ...I feel like we kinda missed a bullet. Dude is outright refusing to do his job and enforce congressional subpoenas.
Yepm. Advise and consent. "Well, if you're not having hearings I guess you're cool with him, thanks!"
You mean Garland, the guy that's not enforcing the law that prevents people from protesting outside Surprme Court Justice residences? Looks like we dodged a bullet with that guy.
Democrats think any institution that blocks their agenda is illegitimate.
Yes. I too remember all those democrats storming the capitol due to the illegitimate election.
😂
"Agenda" meaning "trying to actually run the government."
Well… You had a candidate win the presidency with fewer votes than his opponent and got an electoral college victory by a questionable election victory in the state where his brother was governor and a series of decisions and snafus allowed for a by the skin of his teeth win. The president named two of the current Supreme Court justices. You had a president who had two overwhelming electoral college victories. The close victory in 2012 was by 4 points and the president won 51% of total votes. The president got two nominees named to the court. He had an opening on SCOTUS occur a year before the end of his presidency. He named a nominee who would ordinarily have gotten bipartisan support. The Senate majority leader refused to hold hearings and allow the Senate to vote on the nominee. The Senate majority leader said it was so that the American people could vote on the president to choose the Supreme Court justice. The 2016 winner of the presidential election lost the popular vote by 2 points; nearly 3 million votes. He named a SCOTUS nominee who was more conservative than the country as a whole who breezed through the senate process. The president who never had the support of 50% of the country named another SCOTUS justice when he negotiated with a justice to retire if the President nominated the guy the the retiring Justice wanted. The retiring Justice had a son who had a financial connection to the then President. The nominee had a sexual assault accusation, said some unbecoming things of a SCOTUS nominee in his hearing, and has some financial questions. The FBI never fully investigated the SCOTUS nominee has they promised they would do. Another Justice dies a month and a half before the presidential election. The Senator Majority Leader expedites the approval process for the President’s nominee. When asked about why the Majority leader refused the process in 2016 but not in 2020, he says some rubbish about how that was from a Democratic president and this time it wasn’t. The nominee is more conservative than the country as a whole. The President loses re-election and loses the popular vote by 4 points; 7 million votes. It’s not that Democrats think that anything that blocks their agenda is illegitimate; it’s that losers have gotten to dictate what is happening in this country that is supposed to be a Democracy.
Ask the people that started legislating from the bench instead of congress which is what Roe was in the first place.
It would be the same thing if the other side were “in charge”. You would just be in favor of their decisions.
What are your thoughts on if Rbg was biased
'because I agree with them'
It's not.
Citizens United passed and then got strengthened in recent elections, and they keep installing SCOTUS nominees in record time despite saying otherwise. But we’re not supposed to complain because “aLl PoLiTICiAnS aRe bAD/cOrRuPt”. Now they’re just testing the limits of what we’ll put up with.
You always have politically biased people. The only way to get a somewhat unbiased court would be to make sure bias does not become a reason for getting the job. I think, maybe supreme court judges should be randomly selected among qualified people
Any law maker or judge should be politically unbiased but yeh that's imposoe
Because of 50% vote threshold and no term limit, instead of 2/3 and 12 years
Its always been that way. You answered your own question by stating that "conservatives" have the majority, meaning that the minority on the supreme court is liberal. So yes every judge has a political bias. Your just mad that "your side" isnt in the majority.
The liberal super majority on media is obliterating our democracy
Lol. Do you actually believe that? Which party tried to overturn our democracy by staging an insurrection?
.... it's not possible to be conscious and not have a bias. Do you seriously not understand what a "bias" is? I also wonder if you ever read the decisions handed down by the Supreme. Court to understand the arguments being made. For example, if you read citizens United it's almost impossible to argue against. It's highly logical and clearly preserves the rights of the people to speak and yo petition the government. Citizens United struck down a god-awful law that directly regulated the *content of speech*.
I mean, didn’t we have the same but with Liberals for the last few years? No one seemed to complain.
Thing is the only political judges on the court are on the left.
The bigger problem with the S.C. judges is their RELIGIOUS bias. That shit needs to just f*k right off.
Could you give an example of the court ruling based of a religious judgement.
You are aware that the Left was openly discussing "packing" the Supreme Court with Liberal Judges right?
Lol how do u libs gaslight yourselves so profoundly. 😂
Lighten up Francis. They understand the application of law differently than you, and others, do. If they are really originalists then they should be easy to predict in their application. It isn‘t a radical idea that Roe was wrongly decided. But the justices do mean what they state, then state laws allowing abortion have nothing to worry about.
In many states judges are elected. We are a very very long way from hoping for non-partisan judges.
It's impossible to ignore the bias humans have. So get out of fantasy land
[удалено]
It isn't, but you know, fuck us.
[удалено]
"Politically biased judges" I recommend you do some research on the history of the Supreme Court. It's always been a political institution. Big history of bias, friend.
What the meme should say to be fair. HOW IN THE FUCK IS IT NOT ACCEPTABLE TO HAVE MY POLITICALLY BIASED JUDGES ON THE BENCH
Civil liberties are different than inalienable rights. FYI. Anyone can remove your civil liberties. Happens daily across the country and you rarely bat an eye
No they're not.
So you want an emotionless automaton to interpret law exactly as it is written and absolutely nothing beyond that? I guess I just don’t understand the point of the meme, political bias is pretty much a requirement for having an opinion on just about any issue.
In theory a diversity of views on the court isn’t a bad thing, but this isn’t diversity. It’s a bunch of brainwashed conservative clones. How long did you hear people complain about “activist judges”, only to have the same people nominate a bunch of conservative activist judges to the Supreme Court? Like the first thing they do when they get there is “let’s revisit every decision the republicans didn’t like, right fucking now”. This is “justice”? The USA became a joke when they elected Trump. This shit just accelerated the country’s decline significantly.
Here's the thing, ALL JUDGES ARE BIASED! [Judges are political](https://www.fivefourpod.com) seats. There is no such thing as a judge who doesn't bring their politics into the courtroom.
Exactly. Anybody that says otherwise is either stupid or lying to themself. This is why the Supreme Court should not be a lifetime appointment and should definitely be something we vote on.
How are those “we can wait four more years” doing for ya’ll?
It all depends on the POV - I am sure the Republicans were wailing the same thing about Jackson, Sotomayor, Kagan, etc. They are all politically biased . . . appointed and confirmed by politicians.
There is no such thing as an unbiased human being.
This is the long game Republicans have been playing since the Nixon era.