We have to adjust ourselves to the fact that democracy is the problem, not the solution. And rightly so, in my estimation, power to the people. (Hey! That would make a great slogan!) There are clear and obvious drawbacks to having judges be elected, but not having any voter/citizen input on such choices seems worse. We most likely need to firmly resolve to muddle through.
I’ve been wondering about this weird long set of amendments, and I now think I understand them.
Florida has shortened the time available for Early Voting, but it’s still in polace, although there aren’t that many places to do it. With this incredibly long ballot (according to this morning’s news report, it runs for pages, and the reporter said that, even though he knew what he wanted to vote for, it still took a very long time to get through the voting)
The result is that there are outrageously long lines at the polling stations, with waits of up to several hours to vote.
So it appears that the long list of odd amendments probably was an indirect method of sabotaging early voting by making the convenient voting practice inconvenient, without doing anything overtly illegal.
Yes, when a major purpose of one is to act as a check on the power of the other.
Do you see any functional difference between electing senators and representatives?
Eh… I don’t know that I’d agree with this. I grabbed a sample ballot and took 15 minutes to look up summaries of each of the proposed amendments. It was actually pretty easy for me since I voted against every single one of them, but even if I hadn’t it wouldn’t have taken me all that long. Probably took me 5-8 minutes all together to vote and then doublecheck all of my bubbles.
The part that took me the longest was trying to remember who I wanted to vote for on some of the local stuff (I’m bad with names).
So, that’s good, right? Process worked? People can be trusted now to vote on stuff, since they voted the way you wanted them too?
Apparently following **Bricker’s **misreading, you’ve formed an opinion of the content of the OP that is not reflected in the actual OP. Go back and read it again. BG is saying that the decision to remove these justices on the grounds advocated would threaten the Court’s independence. No part of that is a claim that power should be taken away from voters, preventing them from exercising this power when it is wise to do so.
Well, suppose we replaced them every ten years. That means, on the average, once every year-and-a-bit, the Senate has to deal with the whole nomination and confirmation thing. The President names a candidate, the Senate argues like hell, and the approval is largely decided along party lines.
This shifts vast amounts of constitutional power back to the Senate and the President. The partisan nature of the courts would be increased; judicial independence would be lessened.
It’s bad enough that a President might get to appoint two or three Supreme Court justices in his term; now, he might appoint as many as five or six! Do you want to give that kind of power to Obama or Romney (or anyone?)
That’s where the Senate comes into it. Advise and consent, says the Constitution. Might read it sometime.