As a foreigner Presidential pardons + the appointment (and life terms) of Supreme Court judges baffle me. How can a country that claims to be a leader in democracy have these two wildly abused bugs?
Edit: fixed use of election instead of appointment
Edit: fixed use of election instead of appointment
This doesn't seem to be such a problem in other countries. I don't really understand if that's because the judges are purposely appointed to be as partisan as possible, or whether the 'rules' are so badly written that they can be interpreted any way you like.
It's a philosophical difference in legal systems derived from the Napoleonic code (and more indirectly the Roman legal system, so it's common in continental Europe) vs. the English legal system (the US, Canada, India, Australia, etc)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law#Common_law_legal_sy...
And to your second point, the popular vote went Democratic in the last 7 of 9 elections (and electoral in 5 of 9) but 3 of 9 Supreme Court Justices are Democrat appointed. The court does not reflect our deeply ingrained values.
The supreme court literally decides whether X real-world activity is made illegal by Y law. Interpreting the rules is making rules.
The Republic is actually quite prescient in its analysis of forms of government and how they decay from one form to another. The USA today very much resembles an oligarchy (class-based rule by the rich) being pushed rapidly into social media-driven democratic mob rule.
Were we already farther down that path, Trump might have been enough to push us down the hill even farther, from democracy to true tyranny.
Agree with the first part, disagree with the second part.
It's going to remain an oligarchy, but the circus of 'mob rule' will be utilized to make sure the oligarchs remain in power.
This is quite similar to taking the views of Paul Ryan and Rand Paul and calling them representative of the US government. Those views are not extreme in the context of the time and are shared by a sizeable fraction but it's not a random or representative sample.
“Represent the view of” is misleading. The Federalist Papers were not an academic exercise of recording opinions for posterity, they were long form campaign ads for a targeted audience to sell the ratification of the constitution.
Also, the Federalist Papers were written before the formation of the parties, and when that formation did occur, Madison was one of the founding leaders, along with Jefferson, of the Democratic-Republican Party, he wasn’t a Federalist.
- Have a public vote, direct legitimation (or via some extra electoral college or something) this means that judges have to be "popular" and run campaigns and question is, if that's really smart ...
- Have the "juristical class" elect within, so judges from lower courts would lick somebody, or current judges elect additional ones. That would put judges into their own "class" and remove all democratic legitimation
- or do what is done and have a democratically elected body do it. In the case of the U.S. it's done by a combination of president (nominating) and Senate (confirming) where the Senate represents the different states.
It is one of the tough problems.
For the pardon the idea comes from absolutist times where a King would pardon as he likes. The modern interpretation comes from correcting "blind" justice. Justice has to rule according to law. But sometimes one either might decide that a law was bad and than a pardon might be a way to correct that (ideally if law is rewritten as well) and sometimes there are hard cases, like the 90 year old who should get a chance to die outside of prison, for sake of family etc.
Generally the system assumes the actors act mostly in good faith and were removed (impeachment etc.) otherwise.
I think Germany got that better: here we have a 12 year term (thus a single government can't easily swap them out - a learning from the time of 1933) and a max age of 68 (for whatever reason that was picked)
You might lose some expertise, but on the other hand, you don't have the tragic spectacle of Justices dieing in office whilst waiting for a 'safe' time to retire.
Taking again Germany as my example, since I know it best: There are 16 judges with a period of 12 years. Adding the age limit and other reasons that averages to about 2 elections per year. Thus a bit more than 4 years till a new group can take over the majority. (Now they are elected alternating by the different chambers of parliament, where one of the chambers, Bundesrat, is also slower moving in replacement ... making it hard for a short term movement to take over control and if, impact is relatively short - unless they stay in power long enough to replace all.
Let them serve for a limited period of time, say 16 years max. Can't be removed before then. It's not that complicated and would prevent justices who literally sit on the bench until the day they die.
If that were the case, and justices' terms started in January of even years (to avoid the election cycle), we would currently have 2 Trump appointees, 4 Obama appointees, and 3 Bush appointees, roughly matching what the balance of the court would be next month if Ginsburg had died 3 months later.
One method that I've heard of is to have a committee (/"commission"/"council") select judges. The committee composition can draw from multiple branches of government (e.g. some members are existing judges and others are appointed/elected by the executive and/or legislative branches) and from civil society (e.g. appointed/elected by bar associations; in some implementations a majority of the committee is from civil society). The terms of members of the committee can be staggered.
The idea is to make it difficult for any one controversial person or party or movement to consistently dominate the committee, because in order to do so they would need to consistently dominate multiple branches of government and civil society (because the different members of the committee are selected by these different institutions) over a long period of time (because of the staggered terms).
It's much better to be on an nth + 1 republic, let me tell you.
SCOTUS judges are not elected; they are appointed by POTUS, after confirmation by the Senate.
At the state level, only about half the states use elections for their Supreme Court judges. However, the highly-polarized and roughly-evenly-split Midwestern states (MN, WI, MI, OH, PA) are among these, so it definitely will come across as more visible.
As far as 1 WY vote being worth 4 Texas votes, that’s also irrelevant because the president is elected as president of the republic, not the president of individual people.
Saying that the president is not a president of the people when people literally vote directly for that person (unlike most of the wester republics) is frankly pretty weak. How can you argue he is not the most influencial political figure in a US citizen life?
Some states have tied their electoral votes to the national popular vote in the name of increases democracy. It will be interesting to see the first state that has its electoral votes changed due to this. I imagine those residents won't be so thrilled to have their votes go against their will and in favor of how other people in the country voted.
For all practical purposes though, people vote directly for the president (last election is the proof that even a full front effort won't sway the election outcome from the people's votes). The only practical difference is that one single vote has a different weight depending on what state you live in.
Rural areas are incredibly over-represented imo. This should be addressed more than the tiny details that don't really change the outcome.
Just imagine how different the left and right parties would be if the will of the people would be equally represented.
So the most populous cities should have the unopposed power to decide all of the federal policies that could impact the lives of rural people? This sounds like the recipe for a Hunger Games classist uprising.
This is the same as saying your vote counts less than someone with more friends than you.
Might as well just throw out the whole state sovereignty idea which is an option.
Our whole system was based on individual rights and that philosophy extends to states as equal members of the union.
Just try to look from the other side of the fence. I can rephrase your question as:
"So the few individuals living in rural areas should have the unopposed power to decide all of the federal policies that could impact the lives of the vast majority of the people in the USA?"
So yes. I am sorry but with a democracy, you sometime lose and have to accept that the decision is different from your preference.
In the US this only applies to federal, how much federal laws should impact states is not really in discussion here (and honestly I have no opinion on the matter. I am originally from Europe and have limited understanding of a lot of states laws and structures).
Also, you are confirming my point that rural areas are over-represented. You seem to intend that it is rightly so, but I do find this criteria unjust, just like your example of voting power coupled with amount of friends is.
To me, the only criteria that I find just is "every person has one vote with the exact same power". It's simple and naïve, but only one I have seen that I consider fair.
How you cluster people is irrelevant for a policy to be fair or not. It's petty to chose what gives you an advantage. You should stick to a set of values and agree on policies that better express those values.
Understanding and protecting minorities is one of the core values that need to shapes policies.
You can't solve the minority problem by giving them more votes, because you can't give it to all minorities. Everyone is part of somekind of minority.
Today rural people are a minory who has a privilege compared to others.
Is this a thing? I had no idea. Do you know what states do that ?
This turns out to be really helpful when someone starts claiming something like widespread voter fraud for instance, because there is no one institution to attack, or even identical set of rules that can be exploited. Each state runs it's elections as it sees fit, and then votes the way it deems necessary - and is strongly interested in making sure it's voice is heard.
In that case, why aren't state legislatures or state governors voting for president and members of congress?
And prior to the 17th, Senator were chosen by the state governments as well.
Presumably because people of those states don't want it that way. Which means they consider the federal government "their" government, not the "government of the state".
Uh, not fully…
In France, Germany, Greece, and Italy it's also a prerogative of the president, for example.
The other gaping flaw is the systemic, undemocratic bias that determines the makeup of our Upper House.
This a feature, not a bug, and in fact the United States would not exist without it. The senate prevents small states from being dominated by large states, and is the only reason that smaller states like Rhode Island agreed to join the union in the first place.
If we were to alter this configuration of the Senate, the same question would undoubtedly arise--why should small states like North Dakota, Vermont, and Oklahoma remain in the Union, only to be dictated to by the citizens of Florida, New York and California?
Perhaps. The problem I see is that state boundaries are pretty arbitrary. The real political division is between urban and rural, and whether or not a particular state is 'red' or 'blue' depends on how those boundaries have been created. There are a huge number of rural voters in California that share more with Wyoming rural voters than Wyoming urban voters, so why should they be disenfranchised simply by living within the state of California?
I don't know why this is a valid argument, when you can turn it on it's head. Why should states like Florida, Texas, New York and California, who (1) have the most amount of people and (2) generate nearly all economic activity, be dictated by the citizens of North Dakota? Why is it that this argument never considers the inverse?
It's clear, by looking at Federal budget inflows and outflows, that states like North Dakota need California more than California needs them. If States were countries, and if The United States were more like the European Union, Texas would naturally have outsized power, much like Germany. It would be Texas citizens bailing out North Dakota.
If you think NYC could be supported purely by NY state alone (or frankly even just 'Blue' states), you'd be in for a rude shock.
That much of the value add/economic activity happens in the more densely populated states isn't that surprising - but cutting off the midwest from the rest of the United States would cause catastrophic famine in very short order, to name one example.
[1] https://data.ers.usda.gov/reports.aspx?ID=17844
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/714376/crude-oil-product...
CA's central valley produces fruits, vegetables, and nuts, much of which gets exported, and a bit of, but not a huge amount of staple foods - and if you add up all California's agricultural output, it is still only ~13.5% of the US total. [https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/#:~:text=California's%20a....]
The areas in California that produce that food are solid red, through and through. Texas is red, ESPECIALLY the areas that produce that oil - but let's set aside the intra-state conflicts on this. None of the states mentioned are 'ideologically' self sufficient in their needs (CA for Oil, despite being a major food and oil producer, Texas for food - among literally millions of major and minor needs), and NY State or NYC are most decisively not in either category.
[https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery...]
If you look at your own chart, you'll also see that ~90% of all of the remaining entries following California (who make up the bulk of production) would be called midwest, near midwest (definitely not blue), or 'flyover territory'.
If you go to the link you had and filter by staples (as compared to expensive-per-calorie foods like almonds or strawberries), you'll see this reflected even more strongly [https://data.ers.usda.gov/reports.aspx?ID=17844#P7521943176f...]
California has a LOT of people in it. 11% of the nation. While they might not personally feel the brunt of a major famine right away - running out of fuel for the harvesters, or the steel products to repair their equipment, or the equipment itself (predominantly produced in 'red' areas or imported), would mean it wouldn't be that long either.
If we look at the wider context, losing 50%+ of the agricultural products aka inland 'flyover' areas and the midwest would definitely cause catastrophic famine. And that is at least how much is there from your own links.
I think you are missing mine; I'm not making a blue/red distinction, I'm making a point about senate representation.
First, you are trying to prove that California, Texas, or New York could not be self sufficient. This is a meaningless point as today states like Wyoming are not self sufficient. I'm sure a state like Texas would figure out self-sufficiency much faster than Wyoming. Why do large states have to give up power to small states given that both would probably be screwed without the other, but small states would be likely screwed even more? The idea that large states must cede representative power in order to access resources is absurd - after all they are already paying them via federal budgets; surely there is no reason to double pay? The "they provide resources" argument is bullshit.
Secondly, coming back to senate representation & electoral power - there are vastly more people in rural California and conservative districts like Bakersfield than there are in Wyoming. Those voters have effectively 0 senate representation. Again, I don't care if they vote red or blue, but Wyoming gets outsized power. Why?
I don't naively believe that once California has more representative power that the whole country would turn into San Francisco. I believe states like Wyoming and other sparsely populated, deep red states, allows the Republican party to effectively ignore their voters in blue states as well. That's the reason the current system is upheld - it allows the GOP to effectively never have to answer to it's voters. It cuts both ways, the current system is bad for Americans; red & blue. There are more registered republicans in California than most other states have people and the state itself was solidly red until 1992; yet those voters don't have much of a voice.
The party affiliations do not matter - the notion that a Wyoming democrat has 4x the voice than a California republican just isn't right.
Anything else is 'changing the terms', and that is very likely to result in a lot of chaos - since it would be unconstitutional, unless you got 3/4's of the states to go along with it.
Pretty unlikely, since most of the states benefit from this arrangement?
Statehood is eternal. Secession is quite literally treason and the Civil war was in that sense constitutionally mandatory.
>Statehood is eternal.
Is that you, Louis XIV? Spinning yarns about the divine right to rule?
>Secession is quite literally treason...
Says the nation born of treason.
>..and the Civil War was in that sense constitutionally mandatory.
Any institution which is willing and able to kill a million men solely for the purpose of its own preservation is a menace. But as long as it was constitutionally necessary, I guess we're good?