If they were “simply subservient to the political desires of the GOP”, wouldn’t they be on the same side of the issues closer to 100% of the time?
No, why would you think that?
Well, if they were actually dedicated to supporting a particular political party/organization/ideology, they could vote the same way in every case, with at least a 6-3 vote, and get “their” way. That’s not what happens, though.
All the Federalist Society cares about is that they vote together on certain key issues. Nobody is saying they are clones of each other.
It appears that it is your belief all the cases heard during a SCOTUS term intersect with partisan preferences. That is not the case—probably more than half of the cases heard are on pretty routine procedural matters.
Also, if they agreed on every single case on a 6-3 split, it would be pretty fucking obvious they were being controlled by an outside entity, wouldn’t it? They would have to be absolute idiots to go that route.
Why? What are we going to do, fire them?
Well, actually…yes.
Impeachment.
Hell, we couldn’t get 45 out of office with two impeachments and you think SCOTUS is more vulnerable?
Good luck with that.
And I mean that seriously, I’d love to see some SCOTUS’s impeached, and I’d even more love to see the the legislature that does it.
Doing something incredibly stupid like, say, voting in lock-step 6-3 on every single case that comes before them would certainly make it easier to do so.
Yeah, but unless 67 senators disagree with those rulings, nothing is going to happen.
Gorsuch seems to be a strict constructionist.
Nope. That is their right.
Right, but there must be some reason that Roberts & Kavanaugh voted the same way (practically) every single time, as did Kagan and Breyer.