# Should Supreme Court justices be elected by the people? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 17, 2017, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670 "2017-04-17T21:46:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/41 "2017-04-18T18:16:22Z")
Well, the common good is what the people say it is. 51% is not “the people”. But if you’re talking 70% or more, then you’re talking. The system was designed so that nothing can get done without broad consensus. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/42 "2017-04-18T18:43:41Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Well, the common good is what the people say it is. Not quite – and certainly not always. Consider, just as an example, the following hypothetical policy question: Educators have determined that local schools are overcrowded and underfunded. The problem can be solved by building two new schools and increasing school funding by 20%. However, this will necessitate a tax increase of x%. Guess how many would vote for zero tax increase (regardless of how small “x” might be), no new schools, continue the overcrowding, maybe even cut taxes and cut school spending even more? C’mon, guess! Because exactly those kinds of questions have been posed, and we have the answers. We also have the consequences. Or how about building a park and a community center, which costs money, or instead, rezoning to allow a big-ass smelly factory to be built on the same land, which _ **pays** _ money? Guess which one voters tend to prefer, except maybe those immediately next door? Lord knows there have been enough referendums on these kinds of issues that we know how voters generally trend on direct policy questions, and the kinds of myopic short-term thinking they tend to be influenced by. And if it turns out that kids get lousy educations because schools are underfunded and overcrowded, if it turns out that kids have no clean and safe places to play and socialize so they stand around on street corners dealing drugs, why, that’s not the voters’ fault, is it? It’s the fault of government for not building enough jails! ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/43 "2017-04-18T19:06:21Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Not quite – and certainly not always. Consider, just as an example, the following hypothetical policy question: > > Educators have determined that local schools are overcrowded and underfunded. The problem can be solved by building two new schools and increasing school funding by 20%. However, this will necessitate a tax increase of x%. > > Guess how many would vote for zero tax increase (regardless of how small “x” might be), no new schools, continue the overcrowding, maybe even cut taxes and cut school spending even more? C’mon, guess! Because exactly those kinds of questions have been posed, and we have the answers. We also have the consequences. In my schoold district, levies usually pass with a good deal of support, usually high sixties at least. The last levy passed with 79% support. > [@](#): > > Or how about building a park and a community center, which costs money, or instead, rezoning to allow a big-ass smelly factory to be built on the same land, which _ **pays** _ money? Guess which one voters tend to prefer, except maybe those immediately next door? Once again, my community has little difficulty passing park levies, fire levies, police levies, development disability levies, senior care levies, and so on. It seems there’s a levy just about every time I vote, and it usually passes. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/44 "2017-04-18T19:35:01Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > That’s essentially a (temporary) dictatorship abolishing any check or balance between the legislative and the executive. > “I want this law/it’s passed/It’s implemented/NEXT !”, “I want EVERYTHING anybody legislated before we had power repealed/Done/NEXT !”. The super-executive would then likely get the judicial out of the picture by drowning it in penny ante bullshit suits and/or legislative Gish gallop, since the Senate isn’t there to moderate any of it any more. No more checks, fuck your balance, baby it’s good to be the king. > > And, sure, next election the bums are voted out (maybe - congressional districts being slanted by design & gerrymandering), but what do you, the elector, do when both parties pull the exact same shenanigans and you get to vote between two unrestrained dictators ? > > The US system is _designed_ to do nothing most of the time. That’s not a bug, that’s its major selling point. Except the problem is that “do nothing most of the time” is a horrible way to run a government, and in practice it’s leading to the breakdown of our governmental system. Parliamentary systems have the benefit of clearly defined powers, and strict responsibility for the decisions made by the ruling party. In the American system you regularly get parties promising to do things they don’t actually intend to do, like lower taxes or ban abortion or cut spending. But the thing is, there is a minority of people who actually want to ban abortion. Sure, they believe in that very strongly. But those people are not a majority. A party that actually tried to ban abortion would find their support drop through the floor. And guess what? Next election they’d stop promising to ban abortion. That’s the reason we have these interminable political battles over nonsense issues. The issues can never be resolved one way or the other, because no party has to actually enact or repeal them to use them as a campaign issue, whether they win or lose. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/45 "2017-04-18T19:46:30Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > By Congress did you mean the House of Representatives? The House has no role in approving a Supreme Court Justice. While I’d love to just say ‘yeah, I knew that’…well, I didn’t. I actually thought that both had a role in the process of confirmation. :o ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/46 "2017-04-18T19:49:49Z")
In pursuit of an independent judiciary, how about if they were elected by an electoral college of …judges. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/47 "2017-04-18T20:47:46Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Right, but to put it slightly more accurately, that is its major selling point among those who harbor an intrinsic distrust of government and feel that the less government does, in general, the better. Those who view government as a means of serving the people and promoting the common good may have a different view. Yes, but you cannot give the government more power to promote the common good without by the same token giving it more power to fuck everyone over. Power is power. Much like money it is fungible. Also corruptive :). [QUOTE=Lemur866] In the American system you regularly get parties promising to do things they don’t actually intend to do, like lower taxes or ban abortion or cut spending. But the thing is, there is a minority of people who actually want to ban abortion. Sure, they believe in that very strongly. But those people are not a majority. A party that actually tried to ban abortion would find their support drop through the floor. And guess what? Next election they’d stop promising to ban abortion. That’s the reason we have these interminable political battles over nonsense issues. The issues can never be resolved one way or the other, because no party has to actually enact or repeal them to use them as a campaign issue, whether they win or lose. [/QUOTE] I don’t believe broken campaign promises is an issue exclusive to the American system, mate 😉 ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/48 "2017-04-18T20:57:00Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > In my schoold district, levies usually pass with a good deal of support, usually high sixties at least. The last levy passed with 79% support. This is a valid point but a few caveats are in order. It seems to be a somewhat recent phenomenon in many places – [Wisconsin for instance](http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2016/11/10/most-school-spending-referendums-pass/93565802/) used to reject about half of school spending proposals, but voters are now approving the majority. However, most of those are for rural school districts which are being especially hard hit by declining state contributions, so the idea is to make it up with local funding. And here’s an interesting number I came across: the percentage of school-age kids in the US versus Canada who should be in school but aren’t: 930 times greater in the US in absolute numbers, about 92 times greater per capita. Public expenditures on schools are about the same but I suspect very unevenly distributed. So one has to look at these numbers quite carefully. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/49 "2017-04-18T21:14:09Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Yes, but you cannot give the government more power to promote the common good without by the same token giving it more power to fuck everyone over. Power is power. Much like money it is fungible. Also corruptive :). I’m reminded of the airline pilot analogy. When you fly on an airline you delegate to the pilots the power to get you to your destination safely. By the same token, you also give them the power to fuck you over bigly if they’re incompetent or mentally ill. What that provides is a reason to support systems that choose and vet carefully those in whom you have to place your trust – what it does NOT provide is a reason that the peanut gallery at the back of the plane should be involved in every single flying decision the pilots make, or that a system should be in place where the captain and the first officer frequently can’t agree on a course of action and so end up with their thumbs up their rear ends doing nothing! ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/50 "2017-04-18T21:55:15Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Educators have determined that local schools are overcrowded and underfunded. The problem can be solved by building two new schools and increasing school funding by 20%. However, this will necessitate a tax increase of x%. > > Guess how many would vote for zero tax increase (regardless of how small “x” might be), no new schools, continue the overcrowding, maybe even cut taxes and cut school spending even more? C’mon, guess! Because exactly those kinds of questions have been posed, and we have the answers. We also have the consequences. Couldn’t a voter support spending money on new schools yet also believe that the bureaucracy of the school system is too bloated and that mid-level administrators with confusing titles who don’t actually know what their jobs are could be cut and the schools built without a tax increase? Or maybe those voters would approve a smaller tax increase if some of the unnecessary crap was cut? IOW, its not always black and white, and these cries of “We need more tax money!” need to be investigated instead of writing the government a blank check. Most voters I know have no problem paying taxes for things that they believe returns a tangible benefit to them. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/51 "2017-04-18T22:07:59Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > What that provides is a reason to support systems that choose and vet carefully those in whom you have to place your trust But those systems either have to rely on the full breadth of the electorate (i.e. complete morons) or apply restrictions to it (untenable, indefensible). Or, yanno, placing trust in things like the Electoral College (too soon ?) ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/52 "2017-04-18T22:22:31Z")
To the topic of the thread - I’m against SCOTUS judges being elected. > [@wolfpup](#): > > Educators have determined that local schools are overcrowded and underfunded. The problem can be solved by building two new schools and increasing school funding by 20%. However, this will necessitate a tax increase of x%. This is kind of like me determining that I am underpaid and overworked. The solution is that my bosses pay me more money! > [@](#): > > Guess how many would vote for zero tax increase (regardless of how small “x” might be), no new schools, continue the overcrowding, maybe even cut taxes and cut school spending even more? C’mon, guess! Because exactly those kinds of questions have been posed, and we have the answers. We also have the consequences. I vote against tax increases every single time a school bond comes to a vote. I suggest they cut their spending. Though I also donate directly to the schools my kids go to, directly to the teachers. We volunteer in the classroom, and I let the teachers know each year if they need help let us know. I’ve funded the last two class projects as a result. I’m fine with paying but I’m very opposed to waste. The common good is what people say it is. Sometimes what people are saying can be misinterpreted. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670/53 "2017-04-19T17:00:39Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > This is kind of like me determining that I am underpaid and overworked. The solution is that my bosses pay me more money! I don’t think that’s a fair analogy. It’s more like an independent analyst determining that you actually are overworked and therefore unable to do an effective job. The solution is not to pay you more money but to hire a second worker or an assistant. And a competent organization would recognize that it’s in its own long-term interest to spend that money. > [@Bone](#): > > I vote against tax increases every single time a school bond comes to a vote. I suggest they cut their spending. Though I also donate directly to the schools my kids go to, directly to the teachers. We volunteer in the classroom, and I let the teachers know each year if they need help let us know. I’ve funded the last two class projects as a result. I’m fine with paying but I’m very opposed to waste. It’s truly commendable to be involved in your kids’ schooling to that extent but it doesn’t obviate the need for a healthy base level of funding that hires competent qualified teachers and supplies them with adequate resources to do their job. You may well have that, but if you do, it didn’t come from constantly voting to cut school spending. ISTM that indiscriminately voting for cuts just on principle is at some point going to jeopardize that. It reminds me of Ron Paul’s answer to what he would propose to do about someone who was seriously ill but lacked insurance. His response was that friends and neighbors or maybe the fellow’s church group should help him out. The problem is that those sorts of solutions don’t work in the real world where you need an institutionalized infrastructure and serious money to solve some of those problems. This is, in any case, a digression from the OP topic, where we seem to agree that direct election of Supreme Court justices would be undesirable. But the way we got to the digression is that I was expressing a lack of confidence in the ability of voters to make knowledgeable or far-sighted decisions on most issues of specific policy. Voters wouldn’t likely know a competent potential justice from an ideological crackpot that they happened to agree with, any more than they would likely be able to competently judge whether or not to fund a new school, road, bridge, or community project. The common good isn’t necessarily what people say it is, because they might say something different if they heard and understood expert impartial advice about the consequences of the decision they’re making. It’s not lack of voter smarts, it’s potentially lack of information and expertise. I have, on occasion, vehemently disagreed with something the government was doing because it was going to cost me money or inconvenience me in some way, only to realize later that it was creating beneficial consequences. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-supreme-court-justices-be-elected-by-the-people/784670.md?page=2)