Should Supreme Court members be elected by the people instead of appointed by the President [with Senate approval]?

SSG Shavonde Chase — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 01:46:57 -0500

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 3 at 2016 8:33 AM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 08:33:04 -0500

No, the judicial branch is to interpret the law according to the law and the specific case they are not to use public opinion to decide the outcome of a case. Nor should elections have an input as the the quality of a judge. This is a dangerous concept that was nearly universally accepted for hundreds of years. If you want to see what happens with partisan judges look up the history of english judges around 1776.

Response by SPC Erich Guenther made Dec 3 at 2016 10:38 AM

SPC Erich Guenther — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 10:38:24 -0500

Election vs appointment leads to different decision making. If we move to election the Supreme Court decisions will be more political. So my answer is NO, they should remain appointed. Supreme Court decisions need to be made with a long term view vs the short term view of someone being political and trying to win the next election.

Response by CAPT Kevin B. made Dec 3 at 2016 11:54 AM

CAPT Kevin B. — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 11:54:47 -0500

Let's see how this plays out. It'd be like getting rid of the Electoral College with California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, and Pennsylvania essentially deciding over the rest of the country what happens. I'd expect a fully liberal court that legislates from the bench which many liberal judges reject the notion of separation of powers as archane. I'm not advocating full conservative but rather a balance with the the odd vote middle to conservative leaning. Bad things can happen if you're too casual with the Constitution and I'd look at a 5-4 alignment of getting most things in the reasonable range better than otherwise. People tend to get hyped on this kind of split but fail to see the many 6-7 plus results. No place to be running a beauty contest.

Response by SSG Mark Franzen made Dec 3 at 2016 2:12 PM

SSG Mark Franzen — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 14:12:48 -0500

I think it shouldn't be up to the president to pick them it should be up to people.

Response by MSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 3 at 2016 5:03 PM

MSgt Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 17:03:00 -0500

Plain and simple NO! Bad idea!

Response by LTC Greg Henning made Dec 3 at 2016 7:14 PM

LTC Greg Henning — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 19:14:42 -0500

This is one the checks and balances within our framework of government.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 8 at 2016 11:37 AM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 11:37:32 -0500

I don't think opening that up to a vote, in a highly polarized society, would help at all and might make things even notably worse than the current congressional polarization does. Personally, what I'd like to see is an independent commission used to put forward a small slate of candidates, from which the President then selects one and it goes into the confirmation process. We need to get away from the hyper-partisan method of Presidential picks for lifetime appointment positions (not just the SCOTUS, but all federal judges) and toward a more neutral process designed to put the best and most capable forward, and that's true no matter who's President. The independent commission method could put forward a short-list for SCOTUS (perhaps 3-5) and a slate of qualified individuals from which multiple could be picked for other federal judges. Such a system would allow the President to still have a say, and would still leave Congress as the final word through confirmations, but would alleviate the worst element of the system as it exists currently. The bottom line is that just because a system worked pretty well for a long time doesn't mean we shouldn't go back and fix it if it either stops working or just isn't as good as it once was. It's not a hit on the founders to admit that while their system was good for the time, they weren't magically able to figure out what will work best 200+ years later.

Response by SSG Michael Tellekamp made Apr 22 at 2017 5:23 PM

SSG Michael Tellekamp — Sat, 22 Apr 2017 17:23:32 -0400

Before making a major change to our government structure shouldn't you state why make a change? This is not a simple change. We have the most durable form of government, controlled by the people, in the history of the planet. No, don't elect the Supreme Court Justices. We should not have made the change for Senators to be elected. That greatly weakened the states and helped fuel this unrestricted growth of the federal government. At the time, I thought that would be a great idea. I did not understand all the interconnections in our system and did not foresee the unintended consequences.

Response by AN Donald Miller made May 10 at 2017 10:06 AM

AN Donald Miller — Wed, 10 May 2017 10:06:54 -0400

Our system of government was created by educated people who had experienced other form of government, so what do you think.

Response by SrA J King made Jul 2 at 2017 1:01 PM

SrA J King — Sun, 02 Jul 2017 13:01:04 -0400

Yes