One of the most important jobs of the president of the United States is to appoint judges to the Supreme Court. These appointments matter greatly because they generally last far longer than a presidential term or two and can radically affect our laws for generations to come.
Justice John Stevens plans to retire at this summer and President Obama is currently considering candidates to fill the vacancy.
The Republicans are going to fight Obama’s appointment every step of the way no matter how moderate of a person he picks. The best advice I can give to Obama when selecting a justice is that he should just go with whomever he feels is the best fit and not to worry about trying to get Republican approval. And that will never happen unless Obama picks someone who will completely pander to their party ideals.
Stevens was appointed by former President Nixon and at the time was considered a conservative. If you were to call Stevens a conservative now, the Republican Party would laugh at you. If I were to describe Stevens with a metaphor, I would say that he is a post in a fence that goes across an earthquake fault. As the fault shifts, part of the fence breaks away and goes farther and farther to the right, leaving him behind with the rest of the fence.
When a Supreme Court judge retires, it’s a huge deal because it can radically shift the political leaning of the court. This in turn can affect the outcomes of cases which involve extremely controversial issues like abortion, segregation, the right to bear arms and the legality of alcohol or marijuana. Depending on how the court rules on such hot button topics, the laws can be completely overturned and ruled unconstitutional.
It is impossible to remove the political element from the Supreme Court because how one interprets a law is essentially political. The best thing one can do is to try to alternate the majority of the court as time passes, depending on what would be best for the country.
With the current state of the country, it is my opinion that the Supreme Court needs a more liberal majority, akin to the Warren Court of 1953 to 1969. Under the Warren Court, a great deal of controversial decisions took place that lead to many great things that we undervalue today. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka is possibly the most famous and well-known decision of the Warren Court. This case led to segregation in schools finally coming to an end.
There are many other landmark decisions made during this liberal court era that will probably surprise many. That is because when people think of liberals today, they think of a big government that tries to take away individual liberties. The truth of the matter is that the liberal goal is to expand everyone’s rights, except when they may be hazardous to others or could cause great harm to the country as a whole.
Listed here are some examples of some of the decisions of the Warren court and what these decisions meant:
o Trop v. Dulles: Under this decision, no American can have their citizenship revoked for committing a crime. Without this decision, it would have been possible for a natural-born citizen to lose their citizenship over a crime, even if minor.
o Griswold v. Connecticut: This decision stated that the Constitution ensures a right to privacy. This case occurred because of a Connecticut law that banned the use of contraceptives. This law could have blurred the line with our protection from random searches and seizures.
o Arbington School District v. Schempp: A controversial decision but important for freedom of religion. This decision says that school-sponsored Bible readings in public schools are unconstitutional.
o Engel v. Vitale: Similar to the case above. This decision declares that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer or require a prayer in a public school.
o Yates v. United States: This was an enormously controversial decision. It dictates the limits of our freedom of speech today and ensures that free speech is protected even if radical and revolutionary, unless it’s clearly dangerous.
o Reynolds v. Sims: The result of this case is that all state legislature districts have to be approximately equal in population. This prevents abuse of the system.
After looking these decisions that came out of the liberal Warren court, and the decisions made by courts that became progressively more conservative as years passed, it becomes very apparent that in a world so full of staggering problems, we need a court that is serious about helping the people. The conservative movement in America has lost its conservatism and has become a corporatist movement. This bizarre shift of the conservative party that’s supposed to be about small government is also reflected in the Supreme Court.
Many important decisions are coming to the Supreme Court and one can only hope that they will make wise and fair decisions that do not harm the rights of Americans. I, and many others in this country, will be watching Obama closely as he picks the next, and potentially hugely influential, justice. We have never needed a clearer interpretation of the law than now, when our country and the entire world is in some of the greatest turmoil ever seen.
