Shouldn't the Supreme Court be above political influence?

everyone has a bias... 100% we are human and we all have opinions.
life does pull a person in different directions...

but a judge should be able to see past a personal bias.. and rule based on the law.
but .... reality is not always what "SHOULD BE".

The problem is that they are chosen by politicians, often on the basis of their known biases and personal interpretations of certain documents. You would hope that they would put such things aside in office, and for some cases I'm sure they do. For others I'm sure they don't, e.g. the way that the ruling that put George W into the White House split exactly on party lines. But I think there's a more fundamental issue here.

Put simply, laws need interpretation. They are rarely written in a way that is unambiguous in all circumstances they may be applied to, and even where they are clear they may conflict with other laws or principles. And resolving ambiguities and conflicts is not an objective matter, it requires, well, judgement. And this is where the opinions, biases and legal or constitutional philosophies of the judges unavoidably matter. To pick an example, how you would rule on a constitutional question is unavoidably affected by how you view the constitution. Do you give primacy to text as written, or to what you think the authors intended, or to what you think the common reader of the time would have understood by it? Or do you give primacy to the principles you think it embodies, or think that there are more fundamental principles which should take precedence? A Supreme Court whose members are equally learned, and equally capable of putting partisanship aside, would still come to different conclusions on some matters according to how it's members divided along those lines.

Once you are on the Supreme Court you are above political influence. They interpret laws not make them.

But the interpretation has consequences for how laws are applied, can lead to their scope being widened or narrowed or even lead to a law being repealed if it is ruled to contradict a higher principle (e.g. the constitution, which itself is subject to interpretation). This is why (in my personal observation) it's not so much the party affiliations of the judges as their philosophical biases that are important, and hence why some politicians fight to ensure that the members of the court have leanings that tend to favour their preferences.

The fact is that the judge initially blocking this is an activist judge. While he's been appointed by a Republican leader, that doesn't mean jack. For almost 3 decades now, we haven't had a true, strong Republican LEADER. The last one was Reagan. Finally one comes in, and the world is stunned

Looking at this , it's not a surprise. The 9th is just as liberal as the judge in WA.

This was a political decision, unfortunately. I'm not surprised this is here. Really, not.

twhiting9275 said:

The fact is that the judge initially blocking this is an activist judge. .

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Ok.... genuine question... how do you define an activist judge?

^^^ i remember an attorney sent to jail for wearing a small political pin in court...
the judge said that politics should not be in the courtroom and asked her to remove it. she said no.. and off to jail she went.

how can this judge wear that hat? is it photo-shopped .. or was it before starting the day?

psionandy said:

Ok.... genuine question... how do you define an activist judge?

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One that goes around making political statements (such as BLM) in court, for example

Or the above example of judge wearing that specific hat

twhiting9275 said:

One that goes around making political statements (such as BLM) in court, for example

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Any political statements, or political statements you don't agree with?

and do you think that making political statements should prevent a judge from being added to the supreme court?

psionandy said:

and do you think that making political statements should prevent judge from being added to the supreme court?

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no.. i dont think it should bar a judge from sitting on the supreme court.
as long as they can keep it outside of the courts professional functions...
in their own personal life.. they are welcome to their own opinions as long as they are legal.

if they believes in child porn.. NO, kick'em out of the judicial system.
if they believe in closing the borders.. that is fine, it is their opinion.
but they have to leave that belief at the door and see that the POTUS immigration ban of the 7 countries is wrong on many levels. and self-serving to the drumpf, because it does NOT address the countries that are of HIGHER terrorist risks (which drumpf has $$ interest in).

I can think of several cases in the last 20 years where SCJ voted against their personal beliefs to uphold the letter of the law and constitution. I hope this will remain the case.

Unfortunately, many of the cases come to the Supreme Court precisely because the law does not cover the issues in dispute - it's impossible for the law to cover all eventualities and when it doesn't, the cases ultimately end up before the Supreme Court because, where else would they go? The job of the Supreme Court is then to make a decision based on other factors, which ultimately means the views and prejudices of the various justices.

There's an awesome podcast by the Radiolab team that covers this precise point - it discusses a case that caused one justice to have a nervous break down and another a stroke, the first because he didn't have any 'prejudices' to fall back on and the second because he had extremely strong 'prejudices' and he couldn't cope when he lost the vote.