People are biased. Politicians are biased. The media is biased. And now, Supreme Court Justices are biased.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg came under fire after she attacked presidential hopeful Donald Trump in mid July, stating, “He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego.”
Trump responded in his typically poised fashion, tweeting, “Justice Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court has embarrassed all by making very dumb political statements about me. Her mind is shot – resign!”
Justice Ginsberg did apologize to Trump, but not without being called out by both Republicans and Democrats.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan stated, “For someone on the Supreme Court who is going to be calling balls and strikes in the future based upon whatever the next president and Congress does, [ Justice Ginsberg’s claim] strikes me as inherently biased and out of the realm.”
Even the horribly liberal New York Times Editorial Board stated, “Trump is right about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.”
Clearly, both sides feel that the Supreme Court Justices should hold themselves to a higher standard and avoid political biases, but that would be naive.
Look to any of this summer’s court rulings to see furious pro-life conservatives (Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt) or devastated pro-illegal immigration liberals (The United States v. Texas).
Not since FDR’s attempt to stack the Supreme Court has there been as much attention to choosing Supreme Court Justices as there is today. Justice Antonin Scalia’s death has both sides using the Court as their strongest bargaining chips to get people to come and vote for the two least popular presidential candidates in United States history.
Both parties are terrified of the other side filling the Supreme Court, but that should not matter. It has always been the President’s duty to select Justices. Since Marbury v. Madison, however, the courts have become a legislative body by using Judicial Review.
Judicial Review takes disputes that should be solved by the representatives of American citizens and gives them to a group of Ivy League lawyers.
Americans wonder why no compromise exists in Congress, but why would each side work together? After all, they can just have someone file suit against whatever they disagree on and wait for a group of non-elected judges to sort through.
Judicial review devastates political unity. The United States were marching state-by-state toward marriage equality, but the Court beat them to it; instead of Republicans offering real immigration reform, they sat on their hands and waited for the courts to stop President Obama’s executive order.
It would benefit Republicans and Democrats alike to form an amendment ending Judicial Review. Moreover, it would benefit the United States to have both sides work together instead of hoping a group of Justices will vote in their favor.
The Supreme Court is not an unbiased group of Americans. Judicial Review is not the way our founders intended we solve our problems. The only way to unite our nation is to force us to work together.