Court Reform

Our country is founded under a system in which there are supposed to be checks and balances. Congress is divided into the House of Representatives which gives states representation equal to their size and the Senate, which gives every state equal voice. Congress makes the laws. The President of the United States is the enforcer of the law, and the Supreme Court is the interpreter of the law. At least that is the way things are supposed to work.

One of the big issues is when an opening occurs on the Supreme Court. The President makes a nomination and Congress approves or not. Presidents have a habit of nominating someone who they believe, by past decisions, interpret the laws in a way that will be favorable with their position of things. Depending on how critical issues are and how much power the opposition party has, a nominee may or may not get approved. What we tend to have is a divided court with extremists views.

A better scenario would be if the members of the court leaned neither to a liberal interpretation of the law nor to an ultra conservative view. The way to ensure that we have a court that judges from the middle, and thus more likely to give an honest interpretation, is to require that the President of the United States to nominate someone of the opposite party.

If Bush had nomination someone under this criteria, he would have nominated a conservative Democrat and if Obama had nominated someone with this requirement in place, he would have nominated a liberal Republican. What the country would have gotten out of this is a middle of the road court with more centrist views of the laws.

Of course we all know this will never happen.