NationStates Jolt Archive

Something's that's really been bugging me in the news lately, is this fear that the Republicans are going to throw in some really right-wing justices into the Supreme Court, and that somehow this is going to cause the USA to become completely Right-wing. But I don't see how this is the case! Judges only interpret the laws that have been written by the government. If policies are going to shift more to the right, it will be because of the Right-wing government writting right-wing laws. The courts will have nothing to do with this!
If the supreme court makes a decision that the government doesn't like, then the government can just change the laws so that the courts are forced to interpret it in the way the government wants. I guess my point is that it really doesn't matter what kind of judges are in the supreme court, so everyone can just relax about this.

Not quite accurate. Since it's part of the SC Justices' job to interpret the Constitution and decide whether a particular law is constitutional or not, they have considerable leeway.

One of the primary issues dealing with this interperative function is whether the Justices should approach law as "strict constructionists" or not. A Justice who adheres to a strict constructionist approach rejects anything which does not follow the language of the Constitution, or the intent of the writers of the Constitution as determined from their commentaries on what they had written.

A Justice who is not a strict constructionist will interpret the Court's leeway in a much broader scope, factoring in current thinking about recent law. A strict constructionist would see this as "rewriting the Constitution."

Well, the Supreme Court has almost unlimited power. Plus whichever side of the political spectrum the current court falls, the otherside looks on it as "activist."

Look at the mess in the thirties.

We are also used to "activist" courts in general now, and the federal bench has often become the venue of "first" resort for both sides, rather than trying to garner broad based appeal and influence the electorate. Look at the whole gun control debate. It's now almost exclusively framed in Con. Law, not the rights and wrongs of the whole thing. See also abortion etc.

Sometimes a far sighted activist court can be a good thing - like the warren court.

I'm not sure what "strict constructionist" really means, except that it was a term used by Nixon. It's not covered in most advanced Con. Law courses in law schools. But assuming that it means judicial deference, then I can think of at least several instances where Justice Thomas has failed on that count.