Another way to look at it is that the Trump-appointed justices did not vote as party line ideologues *except* on "voting rights, election laws, and campaign finance". Maybe that has something to do with why they were chosen. Maybe it says something about conservatives' priorities.
Things are pretty safe as long as the Dread Chief Justice Roberts and his motley crew of institutionalists, Barrett, Breyer, Kagan, and Kavanaugh, hold the middle.
The court is political. It has been made so by the inert and hyper-politicized right-wing congress, split across two parties of like minds, and recent hyper-political White Houses.
SCOTUS is not in charge of the degree of their politicization.
You already concede that they are dividing and deciding along ideological lines.
How many ideological decisions does SCOTUS have to render before it can be considered broken?
Can you point to a system that would result in zero politicized judicial decisions? I certainly don't see any of the current crop of suggestions to "fix" the "broken" court that can meet your standard, but admittedly, I'm certainly not aware of all proposals.
1) It isn’t my standard. It is the standard of SCOTUS.
2) Expand the court to 31 justices. Have a rotating board decide cases. Randomize justices seated. Would have the side benefits of increasing the volume that SCOTUS can handle, and it depoliticizes it. Also, absent the temptation to legislate from the bench, the right wing inert Congress would have to start coming to work.
It's not a question of being broken. It's a question of going to the extreme right particularly in the realm of separation of church and state. The history of the religion clauses of the Frist Amendment clearly demonstrates that government was meant to be neutral in matters of religion. Believers and non believers are to be equal before the law. The current 2/3 religious right wing majority is intent on carving special exemptions to otherwise universally applicable laws that are available to only religious objectors. Up to now, a Court majority has always said that government cannot favor "religion over irreligion." Now there is a clear majority that would overturn this. The are forgetting the wisdom of Justice O'Connor, an otherwise moderate conservative, who wrote that no branch of government should be able to treat anybody differently based on the God or gods they worship or don't worship.
This is true. I mention the religious right wing decisions because they are now the most prominent of overtly political agendas. However, any instance in which a political decision is made in which a rigorous legal analysis would dictate another outcome is a deviation from a judge's obligations, regardless of where the political content--which should not be a motive for the decision--falls on the political spectrum.
At this point, due to the machinations of the other two branches, SCOTUS has no credibility. It is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a political court.
So they lost that fight, and really are not empowered to reform themselves.
So the US has a political court, a captive congress, and a President from the corporate right wing of what 40 years ago ceased to be an opposition party.
It is hardly surprising that the US is only considered a 'partial democracy', or a 'failing democracy'.
Another way to look at it is that the Trump-appointed justices did not vote as party line ideologues *except* on "voting rights, election laws, and campaign finance". Maybe that has something to do with why they were chosen. Maybe it says something about conservatives' priorities.
Things are pretty safe as long as the Dread Chief Justice Roberts and his motley crew of institutionalists, Barrett, Breyer, Kagan, and Kavanaugh, hold the middle.
(And sometimes Gorsuch)
The court is political. It has been made so by the inert and hyper-politicized right-wing congress, split across two parties of like minds, and recent hyper-political White Houses.
SCOTUS is not in charge of the degree of their politicization.
You already concede that they are dividing and deciding along ideological lines.
How many ideological decisions does SCOTUS have to render before it can be considered broken?
I would argue - one.
Can you point to a system that would result in zero politicized judicial decisions? I certainly don't see any of the current crop of suggestions to "fix" the "broken" court that can meet your standard, but admittedly, I'm certainly not aware of all proposals.
1) It isn’t my standard. It is the standard of SCOTUS.
2) Expand the court to 31 justices. Have a rotating board decide cases. Randomize justices seated. Would have the side benefits of increasing the volume that SCOTUS can handle, and it depoliticizes it. Also, absent the temptation to legislate from the bench, the right wing inert Congress would have to start coming to work.
It's not a question of being broken. It's a question of going to the extreme right particularly in the realm of separation of church and state. The history of the religion clauses of the Frist Amendment clearly demonstrates that government was meant to be neutral in matters of religion. Believers and non believers are to be equal before the law. The current 2/3 religious right wing majority is intent on carving special exemptions to otherwise universally applicable laws that are available to only religious objectors. Up to now, a Court majority has always said that government cannot favor "religion over irreligion." Now there is a clear majority that would overturn this. The are forgetting the wisdom of Justice O'Connor, an otherwise moderate conservative, who wrote that no branch of government should be able to treat anybody differently based on the God or gods they worship or don't worship.
It doesn't matter if it is extreme right, extreme left, or left, or right. It matters that political decisions are being rendered at all.
This is true. I mention the religious right wing decisions because they are now the most prominent of overtly political agendas. However, any instance in which a political decision is made in which a rigorous legal analysis would dictate another outcome is a deviation from a judge's obligations, regardless of where the political content--which should not be a motive for the decision--falls on the political spectrum.
At this point, due to the machinations of the other two branches, SCOTUS has no credibility. It is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a political court.
So they lost that fight, and really are not empowered to reform themselves.
So the US has a political court, a captive congress, and a President from the corporate right wing of what 40 years ago ceased to be an opposition party.
It is hardly surprising that the US is only considered a 'partial democracy', or a 'failing democracy'.
Thank you for the clarity here. The breakdown of votes along non party lines was encouraging. The Arizona voter law being an exception of course.