This concept is so important to the way our government runs. We have a law making body, Congress. We have a kind of CEO of the country in the president. The Supreme Court is there to ensure that the laws passed by Congress and signed by the president abide by the U.S. Constitution. They are not supposed to legislate by their decisions. In other words, they should not rule in cases where the results of their judgement either legalize or condemn actions or laws.
That’s why this new Supreme Court Justice selection is important. I know that the judge selected by President Obama will not have the political views I have, but all Supreme Court Justices should be what is known as a “strict constructionist”. This simply means that they unfailingly look to the Constitution to decide what should or should not be done.
There are many occasions of the Supreme Court “creating law” from the courtroom. The two most famous ones are the Dred Scott decision from 1857 and the Roe vs. Wade decision of 1973.
The results of these cases were hugely damaging to our country in my opinion. The Dred Scott decision came at a time when the country was moving ever closer to Civil War, and the tensions between slavery advocates and abolitionists was so high. The Supreme Court ruled that slaves could never be US citizens, could not sue for their freedom and were to be slaves even if their owners moved to a free state. They attempted to settle the extremely emotional issue based on their own political views, which were largely pro-slavery. They weren’t willing to consider that the Constitution said, “all men are created equal.”
The same thing happened with Roe vs. Wade, except the issue was abortion, not slavery, and the unborn child, as opposed to a black man has been denied existence as a person deserving the same protection under the Constitution that a person outside of the womb receives.
Judge Sotomayor is NOT a strict constructionist. She has had some highly controversial decisions that have made it very easy to wonder if she isn’t a racist. 5 out of 6 decisions she made that were appealed to the US Supreme Court were reversed, because they were determined to be the wrong decision.
That’s my two cents why I hope this judge will be rejected by the Congress.
