1- Serve for life
2- Appointed by president
3- Strike down any bill


These are some things the supreme court can do;. They can strike down ANY BILL or law saying "its unconstitutional". And they serve forever! Whats your opinions

Based on the latest Supreme Court decisions, I would tend to agree with you. I hate affirmative action, and that was upheld. I am lucky that i got accepted to Stanford, even though I was valedictorian, have an IQ of 149, a 34 on my ACT and a 1560 on my SAT, based on affirmative action, an african scoring slightly less on all of those items would attend Stanfor in lieu of me. That is not right. As for the recent sodomy decision, please dont even get me started on that one. But back on topic, The supreme court should be limited to a certain extent. How, I will have to think for awhile and get back to you.

I agree i think that the superme court should be klimited in some aspect. They have all too much power! . I would like to point everyone to this article http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~croft/archi...emic/court.html and read it.

Provided they behave in accordance to the law.



And confirmed by the Senate.



Incorrect. The U.S. Supreme Court cannot strike down bills, only laws. Bills are proposed laws which have yet to be approved by both houses of Congress and signed by the President. Once that has happened, then the bill becomes law. Further, the Supreme Court doesn't arbitrarily strike down any law on a whim. Before they hear any case, some dispute based upon the law must arise and proceed through the lower courts until an appeal finally reaches them. And even then, they can decide which cases to hear and which not to hear. Also, the only time that the Supreme Court strikes down a law is when that law is, in fact, unconstitutional. In case you're not sure, an unconstitutional law is a law that is contrary to the Constitution of the United States; one that goes against the rights, rules, and principles set forth in the Constitution.

As for my opinion on the matter, I don't think they have too much power at all. They have just as much power as they need to have in order to best perform their duties. Imagine if they only served for a few years instead of their lifetime. They might cave to outside political pressure to rule one way or another. The way it is now, they feel no such pressure, or if they do, they simply ignore it. They can rule the way they see fit with fear of socio-political reprisal. They have job security and they know it. Their minds are free to rule to the best of their ability and knowledge, and without fear of backlash against them for their decisions.

The Supreme Court is definitely too conservative in my view. It could really benefit from getting Janet Reno. Maybe each president should get to nominate 2 for a waiting list or something. That way a Republican administration can't appoint Justices than Democratic administration.

No, the supreme court is a vital part of our government, and the ability to *strike* down any bill, and suffer no consequences because of it is important. To begin with, the supreme court can only hear those cases brought before it so it cannot select its own agenda. Also it can only strike down those laws already passed. This is perfect restriction of its powers. Just like the legislature sets forth the laws, they cannot enforce them as the president has the power to do. It's ridiculous to allow someone to make a rule and enforce it at the same time. Similarly it would be ridiculous for the Supreme court to be able to make a law, while getting rid of ones it doesn't like, or find cases for those laws which it would like to strike down. It provides an incredibly effective pivotal balance between executive and legislative powers.

IMO, special interest groups have too much power and to give a supreme court justice the freedom to judge without repercussions is essential to allow them to use *their* judgement and not special interest groups. Understand that pure democracy would end up in the poor voting to take all the rich citizens' money... smells like socialism to me. Too much democracy is bad. Some institution are better left as answering to their own morals. For example, California was left to the devices of referendums. Outcome... budget crisis... power crisis... you make your own decision here. Personally, I'm confident that Mr. Greenspan can make Fed Reserve decisions much better than the average citizen.

No... I think the supreme court is an important safeguard against political associations and has proved to be many times.

I agree that they are entirly to proactive, they are getting into everything. The Supreme Court cannot create laws, or at least they are not supposed to. But they are expanding their interprutations to include laws and rights that had allways been delegated to the states. They are in effect creating law by interprutiing the constitution in an ever expanding context. Its disturbing because you cant vote them out like they are getting ready to do out in California with Gov. Davis. Your just stuck with them.

Upon cogitating on it for a while, I have concluded that the Supreme Court does need to be limited in it's power. After thinking as to what to do with regards to the Supreme Court I believe that a good idea would be to have the Vice President of the United States be delegated the power of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and that another check would be to make all justices with the exception of the Chief Justice subject to removal with a 2/3 majority of both houses. This would prevent an abuse of the power of removal, but it wouls still exist. The Supreme Court is far too liberal nowadays, and hopefully it will shift back to conservatism. Again, my ideas for the Supreme Court are:
1. The Vice President be delegated the chair of the Supreme Court Chief Justice, or possibly even the Attorney General if the VP is unqualified with regards to Law.
2. While Justices would still serve for life, All Justices would be subject to removal with a 2/3 vote by both Houses. This would not be an impeachment however as no crime would have to be committed. The Chief Justice would only be able to be removed by impeachment. I will think some more on this one, but in my opinion I may have something here.

Here here. Make it more democratic, that's what the US is supposed to be about, isn't it? Good idea. Maybe there should be stricter laws regarding the upholding of the constitution too [ahem, Affirmative Action].

CP

Yes, affirmative action angers me. It is very unconstitutional. Another issue that offends me is "black colleges." these are fine with many, but can you imagine if one tried to have a white college? Can you imagine the outrage that would ensue? But yet it is perfectly ok for blacks to have their own college, so I for one want a white college. After all, isnt this country preaching equality? This would be a good case for the Supreme Court to hear-the constitutionality of a black college.

You say the Supreme Court is too Liberal, but Bush is ready to replace the next retiring Justice with a Conservative. I see the appointment by the President as a good thing, it provides something like a moving average of the elected political view. If a good number of Republican Presidents are elected into office over some length of time, chances are the Justices will tend to be replaced with Conservatives. Also, there is a voting process in the Supreme Court; no one person is controlling the "striking down" of laws... a hint of the flavor of the old Senate, elected by the States, semi-democratic.

One thing that people forget, what ever law the Supreme Court strikes down can be re-drawn by the Congress, passed and signed by the President.

The Supreme Court is a bit fluid with its interpratation of the Constitution for my taste is the 4 spoke in our goverment system which is THE BEST in the world I might add. Leave it alone and elect those senate, house and presidential canidates that you wish to have a part in changing the court. But don't mess with the Supreme court system.

The Vice President is already president of the Senate. Also, I think the Attorney General would have too much to do in the way of running the Justice Dept. to take on the role of Chief Justice. Besides, they'd be pretty biased considering the VP would rule however the executive branch wished and the job of the Attorney General is to prosecute criminals while judges are supposed to be objective and not prejudicially favor one side over another.



Well, if its not impeachment than what is it? Why should Congress be given the power to arbitrarily remove a Supreme Court justice? This would open the possibility for the justices to make decisions based upon political pressures and not on constitutionality.

All that intelligence and still unable to spell or capitalize properly? Oh well...

I have problems with the fact that Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life. Not because of the fact that I want to get rid of older justices, but in certain cases such as Justice William O. Douglas, the liberal giant, hung on until he became an embarassment to himself and The Court.

The Supreme Court is one of the most powerful and certainly the most understood branches of government. Liberals hailed the (Earl) Warren Court and conservatives have been heartened by the Rehnquist Court. The Court should not become a political organism in the way the Congress is, but unfortunately we're seeing the Supreme Court imposing itself into matters where the Congress and the Presidency will not. We're now seeing Justices hang on until they get a president or Congress that fits their political temperment. This is not a good thing. I don't have a problem with Justices having a political philosophy, but it shouldn't be their deciding factor in how they rule.

I suspect this thread was prompted by recent decisions that some people consider out of the conservative mainstream. I would remind everyone that only two of the nine Justices were appointed by a Democratic president (Breyer and Ginsburg). All the others were appointed by Republicans.

The Supreme Court isn't perfect, but it's perfect for our democracy.

As posted in another thread, I don't think the Supreme Court has too much power but I do think the executive branch has too much influence over the make-up of the court. I would like to see a commission or committee created that had the ability to send Supreme Court nominees to the Senate. I think there is too much temptation too make a lasting presidential legacy by appointing justices with more extreme views.

The Supreme Court has evolved into a quasi-legislative body. That's not a good thing. They're supposed to pass judgement on the constitutionality of the law, not make it themselves. If they'd return to what the founding fathers intended for them their political leanings would have less impact.

Perhaps I'm forgetting something. What law has the Supreme Court made? Fill me in if you don't mind.

The near-total lack of accountability for Supreme Court justices, from the day they're confirmed to the day they die or quit voluntarily, is undoubtedly the weakest aspect of our tripartite "checks and balances" system. In fact, I personally think it calls that entire system into question. As it stands, the Supreme Court is in fact supreme over both legislature and executive, able to infringe on the other branches' prerogatives without those other branches having any constitutional recourse.

Historically, the Supreme Court is what we in the computer field would call a kludge. The participants at the constitutional convention distrusted both parliaments and executives. They couldn't bring themselves to place one above another, nor could they find a way to balance the two against each other, so they granted arbitrary power to a third branch as a compromise. Maybe it's just as well that they didn't realize their mistake and try to "fix" it by adding a fourth branch, then a fifth, ad infinitum. I've seen technical specs written like that with each layer just pushing the problem out a little without actually solving it. Such systems never work for long. Only the near-paralysis built into the American system (a major problem in its own right) has kept the system from collapsing already. There are your real checks and balances: a system designed to fail, but also designed so it can't even do that quickly.

I'd prefer a parliamentary system any day. The lines of accountability are clear, and the structure is provably both stable and representative without these little pockets of anti-democracy disguised as "checks and balances".

... and people are still argueing about this Two hundred and Fifteen years later.

I think that the system is JUST FINE. The way to correct any "problems" is to get LOTS more people to actually pay attention to politics before the scandals and vote in people who are... independent of mind and cannot be easily swayed by little political groups with lots of money, ect. People who use reason and have sound arguements and actually act as opposed to reacting or filibustering/being full of "poo". Don't change the system just because you don't like the people in it.

O.

I think this is a great topic. My POV.....I believe that what gives the Supreme Court more power than they deserve, is not the length at which they serve (I think that's good for continuity) or the appointment by Presidency. These shouldn't have any effect on their decisions because they are supposed to be upholding a document that was written 200 years ago. I know the real problem lies in people trying to bring interpretation upon our Constitution. Calling it a living document capable of being interpreted by the standards of today. Something I can't believe any of our forefathers would agree with. But it's a great way to get around laws you don't like without legislating them or getting an amendment change.

I think if Affirmative action was at all about diversity instead of black activism, (and I specify blacks because colleges and employers tend to center their favoritisms around them more than any other minority) either the Supreme Court, or so called, "Civil Rights Leaders" like Al Sharpton, or anyone who claims to think diversity is so much more important than equal opportunity would equally pressure, or at least ask schools composed of up to 90% blacks to diversify.

yes they have to much power. as chief justice of the supreme court Charles Evans Hughes once said: "the constitution is what the judges say it is"

I do not think the president should be the one to put justices into power, and they their should be a limit to how long the sit on the bench rather then a lifetime appointment. they should have to get elected every ten years and be limited to three terms total. this should apply to ALL judges, from the supreme court to district judges (I think some places do elect their local judges) of course, you should have to have been a lawyer for at least ten years before you can even think of running. campaign contributions from corporations would be extremely forbidden(taking one automatically removes you from the race) and individuals would be limited in how much they could contribute based on income (the more you make, the less you could contribute) and would be limited to 5000 an person.

that could help with a lot of problems, but not all. what to do if they rule an unconstitutional law constitution and vice verse I am not sure, perhaps if they did they would get recalled and banned from ever serving as a judge again for life.