OK, I can see this. But if you’re just picking 5-4 cases, you are by definition excluding those cases where the conservatives vote as a bloc but one or more of the liberals sides with them - in which case the voting would go at least 6-3.
(In case the quoting is unclear, the “you’re” in the above is whoever wrote the article, not Sam_Stone - but the basic principle still applies.)
And that’s the point. We already have a legislative body. Abolish the Senate. Just get rid of it, or put it through a major overhaul.
The Constitution doesn’t say we have a right to privacy. It also doesn’t say we have a right to vote. What’s your point?
any of you trying to argue that Judicial Activism is a good thing, when it benefits your views, please explain why its not valid when it goes against your views.
The Judiciary does not make law
Democratically elected members of Congress should pass a law that we have a right to privacy, and that we have a right to vote. The democratically elected President should sign those laws into effect.
that is my point
There is no explicit right to privacy in the Constitution. But there’s also no explicit right to contract in the Constitution either. And conservative justices invoked the right to contract decades before liberals invoked the right to privacy. Judicial activism is not something liberals started.
Fine, Liberals didn’t start it.
Is Judicial Activism a good thing?
Liberals do it. Conservatives do it. Is Judicial Activism a good thing?
I’ll say it’s generally bad. There may be exceptions, such as if a law is truly absurd or unjust (yet Constitutional). But it’s mostly bad.
I assume you think liberals think it’s a good thing. Perhaps you can tell us your best guess as to why they think it’s a good thing.
Generally, no.
If that’s the case, then wouldn’t you find conservative judges voting as a bloc more often? Or are you saying that the ‘conservative’ judges are not conservative but actually all over the map?
I would interpret it this way: The ‘conservative’ judges try to follow the constitution, but they don’t always agree on the interpretation. John Roberta also seems to be protective of the court itself, and sometimes moves over to the ‘other side’ if he thinks a particular ruling would be damaging to the court itself, especially over contentious issues. That’s why he went over backwards to save Obamacare, much to the consternation of many Republicans.
An intersting statistic to dig up would be how many times each judge voted to uphold laws passed by the party of the President that appointed them, or to strike down laws the opposing party passed.
All that said, In researching this just now it’s pretty clear that the justices are a lot closer than most people think on most issues.
The page linked below shows both the political leanings of the justices, and also how they have voted in general categories deemed political. And there’s a huge divergence between them. For example, Breyer, Stevens, Sotomayor and Kagan are all clustered together as liberal, and the conservative justices are almost equally clustered as conservative. And yet, when you look at their votes, they are often very close to each other.
For example, on first amendment issues Stephen Breyer, a liberal justice, voted for the ‘liberal’ position 55.8% of the time, while John Roberts voted the ‘liberal’ side 50% of the time.
Samuel Alito, rated the most conservative judge, voted the ‘liberal’ side 39% of the time, while Sonia Sotomayor, rated the most liberal judge, took the ‘conservative’ position 32.3% of the time.
On federal taxes, all the justices vote the ‘liberal’ side more than 50% of the time, and surprisingly John Roberts and Samuel Alito have voted the ‘liberal’ side more often than Elena Kagen and Stephen Breyer.
I’ve never been in favor of judicial activism, which is the judicial creation of law. (I’m a conservative by the way.) But we don’t “just now” have a conservative court, we’ve had a conservative court for at least 40 years or so. I also don’t define judicial activism as “any ruling that isn’t based solely in the plain text of the constitution.” The constitution was never intended to be interpreted as both textual and exhaustive, the court system was intended to incorporate analysis of precedent, legislative intent etc. The core tenet of textualism is supposed to be that if the plaintext of the constitution or a statute says something, the judge shouldn’t just interpret it to say something completely different. For example if the law says drive on the right side of the road, a judge can’t, without violating textualism, say that instead you can drive on the left side of the road. But if a law says “you have a legal obligation to drive your vehicle in a safe manner”, some analysis using precedent and legislative intent, is required to adjudicate specific cases.
The constitution quite specifically says that no enumeration of rights in the constitution is intended to be exhaustive, nor is it intended to preclude other rights existing. So just because there is no black letter right in the constitution that says “you have a right to privacy” doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t exist, nor does it mean that just because there isn’t a black letter right to “property” that such a right doesn’t exist.
There are provisions saying we can be secure in our papers, that our property cannot be taken without cause, which both are suggestive of a right to both privacy and property. The court was always intended to incorporate “established” rights, i.e. from things like the English Bill of Rights and other foundational principles of our government.
With that in mind, Brown v. Board was not decided incorrectly, the 14th Amendment provides for equal treatment under the law, the court found that segregated schools provided equal access to public education based on race–this is in clear violation of the 14th Amendment.
For what it is worth, on the topic of abortion I do believe that Roe was decided incorrectly. I also think Roe has caused significant social and political harm to the country ongoing to this day.
Because they had a good run of liberal court decisions based on Judicial Activism.
There has not been a liberal court really since the Warren court, so basically since the late 70s/early 80s or so when most of those liberal justices were gone.
Logical nitpick: How can you have a democratically elected anyone before you have the right to vote? Or was that your point?
More important point: The constitution does not say what the people can do. It places limits on what the government can do. You have right to privacy because the constitution doesn’t spell out a legal mechanism to take it away from you.
-10th amendment to the Constitution. Admittedly violated all the time by acts of judicial activism. (-:
And my point is that Judicial Activism can work both ways. And it is undemocratic. And I’ve not really heard any argument against my viewpoint.
Truth be told, i am all for reproductive rights, voting rights, etc. I just don’t like SCOTUS making those law
Yes but I would argue several things you’ve said in tis thread suggest you take a view of judicial activism in which you label lots of things judicial activism that are not, in fact, judicial activism, by most views of legal professionals, experts etc.
We, as a society, should have decided that everyone gets to vote. We should have elected members of congress to pass a law that allowed everyone regardless race/gender. It is not up to Judges to decide that