SCOTUS's path back to legitimacy

[Aimless]

Don't wanna derail the thread about the sugarbaby or taint this thread with pessimism.

There's been a fair bit of scholarly work on the legitimacy of SCOTUS, but I'd like to know what you—personally—think is a realistic path back to legitimacy for this court.

We can talk about rental justices, rapists etc till the cows come home, but I think the only hope the court has for regaining legitimacy is through the implemention of a system with term limits that also allows the appointment of a predictable number of justices under each presidency. This can help bolster a sense of fairness and reassure the public that rotten apples will be cleared out eventually, even if ethical norms etc aren't enforced. Term limits for SCOTUS justices has broad public support even though the idea may be unpalatable to billionaires who like to own judges.

What would you say SCOTUS's most likely path back to legitimacy looks like?

What would you prefer?

[Hazir]

At the very least a term limit. Or, detach the appointments from the other branches after setting up a statute for the appointment of new justices. Including a code of conduct with the possibility for a super majority to eject offending justices.

[Loki]

The last part wouldn't help. They've made it clear that they want to be above the law, even if they personally don't take advantage of that fact.

[LittleFuzzy]

A code of ethics, robustly enforced, is necessary. These are life appointments. If they don't want enforcement to be in the hands of another branch, they need to be willing to do it themselves.

I don't like term-limits. I still strongly approve of the court being insulated more and a bit behind society given the scale of its authority, but I do also like that idea of a predictable number of appointments in a Presidential term. Since the justices have made it clear that their small number makes recusals an issue, they've paved the way for increasing the size of the court. Cases to be heard and ruled on by a smaller randomly selected panel, as is customary at the Circuit level. One appointment made each term, with additional appointments possible if the total bench falls below some minimum threshold.

[Hazir]

The last part wouldn't help. They've made it clear that they want to be above the law, even if they personally don't take advantage of that fact.

True, but by changing the framework in which they work, they are forced to admit at least in principle that they are in fact, not above the law.

[Hazir]

Couldn't delete

[GGT]

If we've learned anything over the last few decades......it's that Self Regulation is a pipe dream, a myth, and SCOTUS isn't somehow immune to that just because they're the 'highest court in the land'.

I think they should welcome ethics requirements, as written by congress, that apply to all other federal judicial positions. They should agree that they're not special than any other federal judge, and just deal with it. And if they don't....well then, they'll just have to abide by whatever rules our (broken) congress makes. Whether that means term limits or age limits or stacking the court.

These judges need to stop acting like they're above the law, while they interpret the law. If they care about the Constitution, and expect We The People to respect their decisions, they should act accordingly.

(But I'm not optimistic, since they've ruled that Money is Speech, and Corporations are People. Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society are still freeeee to buy judges, and write it off their taxes.)

[Lewkowski]

If we've learned anything over the last few decades......it's that Self Regulation is a pipe dream, a myth, and SCOTUS isn't somehow immune to that just because they're the 'highest court in the land'.

I think they should welcome ethics requirements, as written by congress, that apply to all other federal judicial positions. They should agree that they're not special than any other federal judge, and just deal with it. And if they don't....well then, they'll just have to abide by whatever rules our (broken) congress makes. Whether that means term limits or age limits or stacking the court.

These judges need to stop acting like they're above the law, while they interpret the law. If they care about the Constitution, and expect We The People to respect their decisions, they should act accordingly.

(But I'm not optimistic, since they've ruled that Money is Speech, and Corporations are People. Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society are still freeeee to buy judges, and write it off their taxes.)

Speech is speech. Imagine thinking how a speech is funded should mean it has less rights.

[LittleFuzzy]

Speech is speech. Imagine thinking how a speech is funded should mean it has less rights.

Rights and powers under the Constitution fall to the federal government, the States, or the People. Corporations aren't people therefore they shouldn't have rights under the Constitution.

[Loki]

That depends entirely on which party they support. Ditto for athletes.

[Lewkowski]

Rights and powers under the Constitution fall to the federal government, the States, or the People. Corporations aren't people therefore they shouldn't have rights under the Constitution.

Corporations are just a collection of people that have decided to create a business. Their right to speech still exists and if they want to a form an organization to promote a specific type of speech that speech should not be interfered with. Anyway aren't you in favor of Stare Decisis? Or is that only when you agree with the decision of the court?

[Lewkowski]

That depends entirely on which party they support. Ditto for athletes.

No one is suggesting it be illegal for athletes to use their platform to protest or kneel or whatever the current issue of the day is.

[Loki]

Corporations are just a collection of people that have decided to create a business. Their right to speech still exists and if they want to a form an organization to promote a specific type of speech that speech should not be interfered with. Anyway aren't you in favor of Stare Decisis? Or is that only when you agree with the decision of the court?

What are your thoughts on DeSantis publicly admitting to going after Disney because of its speech?

[Lewkowski]

What are your thoughts on DeSantis publicly admitting to going after Disney because of its speech?

Disappointing

[LittleFuzzy]

Corporations are just a collection of people that have decided to create a business.

And no restrictions on the corp. would infringe their ability to speak for themselves. It would infringe the corp's pretense to speak for them even when they don't want it to though.

Anyway aren't you in favor of Stare Decisis? Or is that only when you agree with the decision of the court?

You seem to be projecting, Lewk, because that's a perfect description of you. Claiming to think highly of a stable body of law but in fact only supporting it when it happens to coincide with your personal policy preferences

As it happens, I'm not a strong proponent of stare decisis. I recognize why the court system is and I recognize the value in that stability but I feel it's just one important consideration among quite a few others.

I have, as a matter of fact, defended corporate speech and input in the political process as I feel businesses are themselves valid and independent stakeholders in the formulation and consequences of public policy. I don't think I've ever supported the idea that money=speech or that anyone, corps or people, should be able to spend it in whatever way they want to influence elections or politicians.

[Lewkowski]

I don't actually support stare decisis at the highest court, if any point the Supreme Court errored, it should be able to be corrected. Precedent matters for lower courts but not the Supreme Court. And most people if they are honest would agree. Here let me pose this question to you.

Can you provide me an example of a case the Supreme Court has decided that you believe was done in error and even though you felt it was an error, you believe that future Supreme Courts that look at the same case again should uphold the error the court made for purposes of stare decisis? Can we have one example of any significance?

[LittleFuzzy]

I don't actually support stare decisis at the highest court, if any point the Supreme Court errored, it should be able to be corrected. Precedent matters for lower courts but not the Supreme Court. And most people if they are honest would agree. Here let me pose this question to you.

Can you provide me an example of a case the Supreme Court has decided that you believe was done in error and even though you felt it was an error, you believe that future Supreme Courts that look at the same case again should uphold the error the court made for purposes of stare decisis? Can we have one example of any significance?

I don't think any decision should hold into perpetuity. But they also shouldn't change with every switch in justices on the Court. But it depends on the topic and the depth of harm/injustice posed by a poor or incorrect prior and currently controlling ruling. I think Kelo v City of New London was wrongly decided on the merits, but I also think it wasn't decided on the merits (which I think the Court wasn't interested in) but because it presented an ideal procedure to model for the lower courts to deal with inconsistencies between jurisdictions. As such, it should probably continue to be upheld for a time to get that procedural model firmly in place before the Court decides to accept any case which would allow them to readdress what constitutes a rational basis for employing eminent domain in the first place. Harm will continue to be done in the meantime, but it's harm which is already automatically coming with the redress and compensation already standard and required in uses of eminent domain and thus is relatively minimized.

There is not and cannot be a hard and fast rule because context matters. You have to balance the harm being done by upholding precedent for general stability vs the benefit provided by that stability in the specific relevant context, taking into consideration ways the harm might be getting redress.

[GGT]

Speech is speech. Imagine thinking how a speech is funded should mean it has less rights.

On the other hand, should religious speech have 'more' rights than others? Is the Faith and Freedom Coalition a tax exempt non-profit because it has 'faith' in its name, even tho it's clearly promoting a political agenda?

Edit: Alito's newly exposed ethical conflicts, and writing a pre-emptive op-ed in the WSJ tells us everything we need to know. The court sees themselves as "special" and won't self-regulate, let alone accept rules proposed by judicial review or congress. Checks & Balances doesn't really mean anything, huh