As most Americans here will know, one of the powers/duties of the President of the United States (POTUS) is to appoint judges to SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States. Just as the President is the head of the Executive Branch of the government, SCOTUS is the head of the Judicial branch. Along with the Legislative Branch (The Senate and the House of Representatives) these three branches comprise American Government. The President and members of congress are elected positions while judges are lifetime appointments.
Most everyone will agree that the composition of SCOTUS is definitely a big deal. What many might miss though is the fact that the appeals courts are a big deal too. In most cases, the decisions of the regional appeals courts are final. I may be wrong but I believe most cases decided by the appeals courts and appealed to SCOTUS are not even accepted - leaving the lower court rulings to stand. While the President may appoint a handful of SCOTUS judges in his/her term(s), lower circuit judge appointments amounts to several dozen.
How big a deal is this?
These judges decide many church-state separation cases like 10C monuments in courtrooms, so-called Intelligent Design in classrooms and faculty-lead prayer in schools.
These judges decide civil rights cases like LGBT rights.
These judges decide political cases like Citizen's United, what lobbyists can and cannot do and other trivia like occasionally deciding who the POTUS will be - Anyone remember the 2000 election?
I bring this up because of the ridiculous assertion some people make about there being no significant difference between the parties. I won't argue about things like the relative difference in corruption between the major POTUS candidates here. For the purposes of this thread, I not going to address who's in bed with who, who's the biggest liar or any of that. I request the same of participants of this thread. Focus on Judicial Branch appointments. What are the differences and how big a deal is it?
Most everyone will agree that the composition of SCOTUS is definitely a big deal. What many might miss though is the fact that the appeals courts are a big deal too. In most cases, the decisions of the regional appeals courts are final. I may be wrong but I believe most cases decided by the appeals courts and appealed to SCOTUS are not even accepted - leaving the lower court rulings to stand. While the President may appoint a handful of SCOTUS judges in his/her term(s), lower circuit judge appointments amounts to several dozen.
How big a deal is this?
These judges decide many church-state separation cases like 10C monuments in courtrooms, so-called Intelligent Design in classrooms and faculty-lead prayer in schools.
These judges decide civil rights cases like LGBT rights.
These judges decide political cases like Citizen's United, what lobbyists can and cannot do and other trivia like occasionally deciding who the POTUS will be - Anyone remember the 2000 election?
I bring this up because of the ridiculous assertion some people make about there being no significant difference between the parties. I won't argue about things like the relative difference in corruption between the major POTUS candidates here. For the purposes of this thread, I not going to address who's in bed with who, who's the biggest liar or any of that. I request the same of participants of this thread. Focus on Judicial Branch appointments. What are the differences and how big a deal is it?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
