Eight Guys, a Girl, and a Legal Place

Bad show, decent pun, good point.  The nine Supreme Court Justices (eight males and a female) preside over the highest court in the country.  They make sure that the laws passed by the legislature and signed by the executive are in line with the original law, the Constitution.  If a law is unconstitutional then the precedent of Judicial Review, as set forth by Justice John Marshall during Marbury v. Madison, allows the Supreme Court to revoke the law.  It's in Article III of the Constitution.  What isn't in Article III is that the judicial branch gets to make laws.  The founders saw fit to write Article I about the legislature as a way of allowing 535 people do the job of deliberating what should be future law instead of 9.  Those 535 are elected by their constituents every 2 or 6 years not appointed by the President for life.  Yes, I said life and not term of good behavior like my government teacher says.  Take that!

The reason that the court isn't supposed to make laws is that it somehow takes them longer to act than Congress.  Don't ask me how because  I don't want to go into it that deeply, it's on Wikipedia.  Recently the Supreme Court decided that the handgun ban in Washington D.C. was a violation of the Second Amendment.  Some people argue that the Constitution has been silent on personal ownership.  Some argue that the very language requires personal ownership.  The linked article raises a very good question: just how much does the Supreme Court get to decide?  Do they get to decide that it is unconstitutional to place limits on number of weapon purchases per month?  How expensive is that amount of litigation going to be?  Is it worth it?

Even when the Court decides that their ruling is only effective in that specific case, as in Gore v. Bush, there can be unexpected consequences.  If a law passed by Congress eventually gets outdated or ineffective, the legislature can either write a new law replacing the old or vote to erase it.  Once the Supreme Court decides something, it is forever decided.  There is no stopping it, it's the nature of the beast.

Even good ideas have bad applications.  Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.  Good job, Congress.  In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled that businesses could not give tests to employees or applicants for promotions or jobs respectively.  In 1971 that was fine because tests were written to descriminate.  Now, things like tests for promotions in a fire department aren't allowed because few enough minorities don't pass the test that the fire department is afraid that they'll be sued.  I'm glad to know that the Supreme Court 30 years ago is still able to prevent businesses from promoting the best of the best because maybe just maybe the urban kids didn't get a good enouh chance to be better.  Now business has to fail because socialized education fails and nobody wins because the spectre of racism looms.  In a few years white males will be the minority.  Will we get to have affirmative action too?