Should supreme court chief justice be elected? Yes or No? Why?
Answers
NO! Judicial elections for anything more serious than small claims or traffic court are a terrible idea, and introducing them for Supreme Court justices would do great damage to rule of law in the United States.
The concept of the judicial branch devised by the Founding Fathers was a good one: let elected representatives select quality judges, and then let those judges do their jobs without interference so long as they conduct themselves honestly. The law in a free society is often anti-majoritarian; that is, people and groups that are unpopular or small in number are entitled to legal protection or relief even though that may not be what 51% of the population wants. Judges are often required to make decisions that while consistent with the law, are deeply unpopular, so insulating judges from the electoral process is important. A judge who knows that following the law could result in his or her being voted out of office is more likely to do what is necessary to remain employed, not what is right.
The electoral process is majoritarian: within the confines of the law, the majority generally gets what it wants. Removing that anti-majoritarian check and placing judicial offices up for election will only push the limits of the law, and thereby reduce protections to minorities. Let’s take a controversial issue like the death penalty: the death penalty is as unpopular in the US right now as it’s been in about 40 years, but still, more than 60% are in favor of capital punishment. I suspect that most proponents of capital punishment, like myself, believe that the lag between conviction and execution takes far too long. Therefore, running for the Supreme Court on a platform of “I will be tough on crime and make sure that executions are sped up” is likely a winning approach. But at the same time, even those of us who favor capital punishment don’t want innocent people put to death, and a judge who’s now promised more active death rows may be pressured to put honoring campaign promises over giving criminal defendants the due process of law they are entitled to. A lower court judge who behaves in such a way is at least subject to review by an appellate court; the Supreme Court, however, is the final stop for all legal matters.
In Texas, we have partisan judicial elections, and the results are not great. First of all, judges have to raise money in order to run for election, and most of that money comes from other lawyers who frequently do business in a particular court. I don’t think money makes judges corrupt—you’re not going to buy someone’s soul for a few hundred bucks and most if not all judges are good people trying to do the right thing—but even on a subconscious level, there is a corrupting effect, as judges can’t help but realize who helped put them in office. Second, judges often campaign on issues like abortion that matter to voters, even though the average trial court judge will never decide an abortion-related case; what a trial judge thinks about unsexy issues like summary judgment is far more important, but often receives little attention. And finally, the election process often prevents us from getting the best and brightest on the bench. I don’t think that someone has to be a past Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Law Review in order to be a good judge, but too often, the people who are willing to put up with the process of raising money and campaigning for relatively low pay are mediocre/unsuccessful attorneys for whom a term of guaranteed pay seems an impossible dream. Thankfully, most judicial candidates are people who have either made enough money that salary is no longer a concern and/or people who are genuinely motivated by a desire to serve the community, but even one “Wow! I can afford to eat!” judge is one too many.
Some people will doubtlessly say in response that (1) the judiciary is already politicized, so there’s no harm in letting people vote and (2) there should be a mechanism for the people to voice their displeasure with “bad” judges. As to point one, yes, the judiciary is increasingly political, due largely to the fact that Congress has punted its responsibilities to the Supreme Court. Rather than make difficult decisions or do the hard work of crafting good law, too often, the assumption is that the federal courts will clean up the mess. For example, even if you think the idea of the Affordable Care Act was a good one, the law itself was sloppily organized and poorly written, seemingly with the expectation that the courts would have to work through everything. We should demand judges who follow the law as written (not as they’d like it to be) and we should demand a Congress that actually does the difficult job of making law.
Answer:
The supreme court chief justice is not elected.
Explanation:
No, If the Justices stood selected, they would be campaigning on single topics like abortion or gun rights. I don’t want the opinion of Justices campaigning at all, but I seriously don’t like the thought of them winning a famous vote because of their advocacy on one subject. Anyone on the Supreme Court must be ready to interpret laws without bias (including case law selected by a prior Supreme Court).
John Roberts exists as a pretty good Justice. He despises the Affordable Care Act as much as any traditional, but he orders his feelings when hearing cases on it. He maintained that “Obamacare” exists permitted because the government holds the constitutional right to impose taxes, even though he would love to visit that piece of legislation dies. Anyone who cannot judge the law without attempting to twist it does not belong in the tribunal.
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