Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died.

[The Brain]

So Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 87 when she died.

My question is, she was well in her 80s during the Obama years.  Why didn't she resign when Obama was president?

Any number of good reasons. But I don't know which one was most important to her.

[celedhring]

Well, you can't start having justices choose which administation will replace them either. In the end, I think having justices serve for life is a bad idea. Imho, they should serve for a reasonably long, but fixed, term.

[Maladict]

How did the Supreme Court become so political anyway? Has it always been like that?

[celedhring]

How did the Supreme Court become so political anyway? Has it always been like that?

When you have judges being appointed by politicians, there's a risk they will end up appointing political judges. Not an easy needle to thread, since you want separation of powers but also some kind of accountability.

[chipwich]

How did the Supreme Court become so political anyway? Has it always been like that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford

[Sheilbh]

How did the Supreme Court become so political anyway? Has it always been like that?

It's crazy. I feel like more Brits or Irish would know how many justices there are on the US Supreme Court than the UK or Irish Supreme Courts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford

Law is always political. But that's not the same as the courts being political.

I think it's the legislative appointment process that opens it to politics in this way.

[Tonitrus]

I'm not sure it is possible for any selection/appointment process to not be political.

[The Brain]

I'm not sure it is possible for any selection/appointment process to not be political.

Mortal Kombat?

[Sheilbh]

I'm not sure it is possible for any selection/appointment process to not be political.

Yeah - I mean I think even other countries where there is more politics in the appointment process than the UK or Ireland, such as Germany don't have it as a political issue. In the UK and Ireland it's largely the judiciary who do the appointing (or at least recommending appointments to politicians who can turn them down, but that's quite rare) - which creates its own issues, our judiciary is far less diverse than the US and I think it does lead to a small c conservative bias rather than appointing striking or original thinkers. Having said that, I'm not convinced a small c conservative bias is necessarily a bad thing in the judiciary.

I wonder if part of it is also that most countries have minimum qualifications/criteria for all judicial positions and for the Supreme Court. I don't think that exists at all in the US.

[FunkMonk]

Bad news for the election right?
It'll bring some wavering anti trump Conservatives on side....

Most "Never-Trumpers" have already bent the knee or are basically Democrats now, and the people who are most likely to vote on Supreme Court Justices as a single issue are already 99.9% riding the Trump Train (Evangelicals hoping to overturn Roe).

It could also energize progressives who aren't in love with Biden to vote for him instead of a Bernie write-in. Honestly, it's impossible to say so I'm inclined to say it will have a negligible effect on the presidential election.

It'll have a much more powerful effect on Senate elections, though.

[Maladict]

I'm not sure it is possible for any selection/appointment process to not be political.

Maybe, but it could be a lot less political.

I couldn't name a single one of our SC judges, and their appointment barely makes the news. I don't think the political leanings of the judges are known, at least not to the general public. It just isn't a topic, apart from the Geert Wilders court case maybe, but that was bound to happen.

I had to look up our nomination process. Apparently the SC itself selects six candidates which are then narrowed down to three by the Second (Lower) Chamber of Parliament. The King then approves the number one spot, which is typically left unchallenged by the Second Chamber. So the SC chooses its own replacement, and they'll get their first pick unless parliament intervenes. Selecting nominees based on political affiliation is not allowed by the Constitution on grounds of discrimination.

Edit: SC judges are appointed for life (as are all judges) but have to step down at age 70.

[Tonitrus]

I'm not sure it is possible for any selection/appointment process to not be political.

Maybe, but it could be a lot less political.

I couldn't name a single one of our SC judges, and their appointment barely makes the news.

I'm not sure that is a good thing...

But then it also seems like (or at least, we never hear about it) the SC's of other nations have as much power/influence as the USSC has inside its political system.  If they did, you probably would hear more and know more about them.

[Sheilbh]

I'm not sure that is a good thing...

But then it also seems like (or at least, we never hear about it) the SC's of other nations have as much power/influence as the USSC has inside its political system.  If they did, you probably would hear more and know more about them.

I'm not sure the UK one has had some big decisions recently and I couldn't name a judge (and I'm a lawyer  ), but the most prominent members have recently stepped down so that's probably to be expected.

The German Constitutional Court also has a very important role in their system, but I don't get the impression it's as political as the US (despite being a very political court) or that the individual members are as well known? Not sure.

[celedhring]

The Spanish Constitutional Court has had a large profile in the Catalan separatist crisis but I'll be damned if I can name any of the judges. Their mandates are short, anyway (9 years).

The court has an unwritten rule of avoiding split decisions in landmark cases, so that kinda tends to reduce political infight to dominate it.

[The Brain]

Sweden doesn't have a Constitutional Court. We don't need one, the Riksdag promised to be good.