It’s the duty of the court to maintain the public’s trust in the institution: without that trust the law doesn’t matter very much. This court has not been doing that very well, as evidenced by sharp changes in the opinion polling. This leak, evidence that justices are sharing unpublished opinions with interested parties, and the current weak-tea investigation are only part of the problem. But they’re big problems.
The SCOTUS is not supposed to be swayed by public opinion. The only thing that is supposed to matter is the Constitution itself, and any amendments Congress has ratified along with case law, etc. ie. if you are upset by something SCOTUS didn't agree with you on - be mad at your Congresscritter - they are the only ones with the power to change the Constitution and law.
However, there has been a growing push among some of our population that whatever is deemed popular today should be declared constitutional. That's just not how our system works - by design and for good reason.
The founders went to great lengths to ensure a populism movement could not change our federal government on a whim.
Populism movements, often based on emotional arguments rather than reality, change too rapidly and easily to form a stable platform for a long-lived government.
The erosion of public trust in the institution that is the SCOTUS is based purely on populism movements of late. Without going into specifics - the particular issues that are said to be causing this alleged erosion of trust are simply not Constitutional issues. Yet, the people demand it be so regardless... kind of the hallmark of a modern populist movement.
The court's been political, has been meddled with in political ways, and has had multiple important people—including signers of the constitution—point out that if they get too wacky we can and should just ignore them, for basically the entire history of the country.
> including signers of the constitution—point out that if they get too wacky we can and should just ignore them
Completely untrue.
Not only is SCOTUS the head of one of three branches of our federal government and cannot be ignored (whatever that means) - there is an Impeachment & Removal mechanism in place for when a particular Justice does not uphold their duties.
However, not agreeing with you on some issue is certainly not a failure to uphold their duties.
Frankly, none of this matters for the purposes of our government and this conversation. Only the Constitution matters. SCOTUS literally cannot be "ignored" since they are the only body of government that decides what is or is not Constitutional.
> The erosion of public trust in the institution that is the SCOTUS is based purely on populism movements of late. Without going into specifics - the particular issues that are said to be causing this alleged erosion of trust are simply not Constitutional issues.
WDYM? Is the SCOTUS hearing that new york gun law case, when the gun law itself was annulled anyways so the case is basically moot, not an issue? Or SCOTUS hearing the precursor case of limiting EPA regulation before the EPA has regulated anything? Or SCOTUS's multiple really significant decisions passed through the shadow docket, aka no reasoning provided?
This doesn't seem like people being mad because populationist reasoning. It reads like people being mad because SCOTUS is acting spuriously and is deviating from established law theory but there are no ways to hold them to account for doing so.
Even if a particular law has been annulled out of fear of a SCOTUS decision - that does not mean SCOTUS should not take up the case. After all, people were harmed by the law, and the law possibly was never Constitutional in the first place.
We cannot have a system where a Federal, State or Local government passes Unconstitutional laws on purpose, oppresses a population and only repeals the law when there's a real risk of a SCOTUS decision.
States like NY and CA have a history of repealing & replacing laws (with similar but slightly different laws) just to keep SCOTUS out of things (one cannot just take a case directly to SCOTUS after all).
The EPA case was whether or not government agencies and departments have the power to make up and enforce regulations on their own. The Constitution only provides Congress with the ability to create new laws and regulations, which is why this case reached SCOTUS.
The EPA was not a target, although they were the vehicle for that case. The decision from SCOTUS provides guidance to all lower courts in the nation. The importance here, is a lower court can short-circuit a complaint based off this guidance from SCOTUS. So next time some random government agency makes up a new law and tries to enforce it - a lower court can stop it quickly instead of a case having to make its way up to SCOTUS again (because that court can reference the decision and say this is Unconstitutional - getting a case in front of SCOTUS can take years or longer).
These are exactly the types of cases SCOTUS is supposed to take, rule, and provide guidance for all of the other courts in the nation.
Populism is exactly the reason people are upset with both. "Guns are bad" and "EPA is good" are emotional, populist arguments that count on people's misunderstanding or ignorance of how government, the Constitution, law and SCOTUS are supposed to operate.
Here's the thing though, both of these cases have no reason to be brought to SCOTUS because it fails to show aggrieved party or harm done. In the NY case, the law itself was already moot, and therefore the case should've been dismissed. In the EPA case, there was could be no harm done, because no regulation had passed. By this logic I should have a legal right to sue anyone due to a potential violation of any civil liberty without first proving any actual violation whatsoever... which is clearly nonsense.
SCOTUS took up both these cases for clearly political reasons as opposed to good law.