Do you feel the American people should have a say in the selection of Supreme Court Justices?

Question

My suggestions is to keep the current system with one tweak. The Justices would have to stand a vote of confidence from the people in the next presidential election year, at least one year after nomination.

The question could be phrased as follows, "Shall Justice Smith be retained on the Supreme Court?"

I would make it so that at least 2/3 of people that voted for the President (not of registered voters) would have to say "no" in order to remove a Justice.

Answer 1

Your idea sounds sensible.

I'd insist on term limits. 8-10 years maximum.

These people are sitting Dictators.

Answer 2

Actually, we do.  When President Bush nominated Harriet Meyers, there was a major groundswell of opposition from the GOP base.  He eventually backed down.

Answer 3

You may be onto something.

Answer 4

No, because it would end up as our Congress and Senate is; by popularity and not ability.  No one pays any attention to the qualities and qualifications of elected officials anymore.  It is a popularity contest and the Justices NEED to have some understanding of what is going on.

I do agree there should be some sort of recall process, or a way to bring Justices to task in their performance.  I do not know how we would do that.  It will take people much smarter than me to figure that out.

Good question...star!

Answer 5

Not a chance.

It is called balance of powers and they need to be insulated for that.  The House is much more representative of every popular whim.  The Supreme Court mustn't be.

Answer 6

No. They are appointed for life to remove them from the world of partisan politics. We made one mistake with ratification of the 17th amendment and changed the method of electing the members of the United States Senate.

I'm also unwilling to have a vote of confidence from an  adult population in which less than one in five has even read the Constitution and a majority don't even know the name of the Member of Congress for their district.  

As for the other half of your proposal, neither you nor I vote for President. We vote for electors pledged to candidates for President and Vice President. And we do this despite the fact that 26 states have no law which requires their electors to vote in accordance with the people's desires.

Answer 7

I agree with most of the other posts - I think your idea is horrible, sorry.

Democracy has every chance of becoming a tyranny of the people, by the people, for the people.  Hitler was elected.  Our supreme court justices did not rely on public opinion when they ruled that southern states must integrate schools.  

I don't like the cynicism of presidents' appointments, trying to get the least independent judges on the bench.  I still think that's preferable to opening them up to a confidence vote.

With elections would come pandering, and, ugh, lobbyists.

Answer 8

Good idea

but

That will never happen

Answer 9

No, I don't.

There is no good reason on earth to try and interject politics onto the USSC and open it up to the same kind of corruption we see in the other two branches of government.

Your idea would require a Constitutional Amendment.

The Senate can either approve an appointment to the court or not, but they can have no direct say in how the court should rule in any case.

There is no number of Justices set forth in the Constitution.

The Congress controls the number of Justices. They can make the court bigger or smaller in attempts to aid a desired outcome in cases that may come before the court and this they have done many times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/opinio...

Although 30 years ago, I may have been for your suggestion, as of late, I would be against it.

FDR tried to stack the court in the 1930's as the court struck down 2 of his New Deal initiatives. One of those struck down as unconstitutional was the Social Security Act. I submit that if they had not reversed that decision some years later, we would not be 9 trillion dollars in debt as a nation. There would be far less corruption as there would have been far fewer dollars available for the buying of votes. The "New Deal" paved the way for "The Great Society" of the 1960's.

Those two initiatives are the big engines driving our debt.

Universal healthcare would add a third and more powerful engine to propel us into financial oblivion.

FDR's subterfuge was exposed and he failed to get the opportunity to stack the court early in his administration.

In the end, he got to stack the court the old fashioned way, becoming the President with the second most appointments (8), behind Washington (10).

The court stacked with his appointments finally approved all his raw deal, I mean New Deal.

It all boils down to the fact that I have no faith in any majority’s ability to judge the Constitution as evidenced by what I see in Yahoo Answers and to blindly turn over the USSC the ability to destroy the document in the blink of an eye based on the befuddled majority of the moment would be insanity.

For example, I read over and over again about the “right of habeas corpus” in this forum, when if one actually knows anything about the Constitution, one would know this.

Article I Section 9

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

Answer 10

of course, but they never will

Answer 11

The people do have a say, its called "voting for President and Congress".  Don't fix a broken system with more brokenness, VOTE THE b******s OUT if you don't agree with them.