Blog Post #2

The US Supreme Court Reflection

The U.S. Supreme Court is a massive part of our justice system in the United States of America. I learned so much from watching these videos, and it also refreshed my memory on some things I already knew about the Supreme Court, such as that when a Supreme Court justice is chosen to serve, they serve for life unless they retire, resign, or get impeached. Currently, there are a total of 9 justices, with one chief justice and 8 associate justices, but this number has and will continue to change over time, as the number is set by Congress.

A Supreme Court justice goes through a lengthy process to be selected, and the first step is that a seat needs to be open that needs to be filled. The president will then select a nominee, normally someone who aligns well politically and is very experienced in law and judicial philosophy. The nominee is then put through multiple background checks and reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Afterward, the nominee will go through multiple confirmation hearings where the Senate will ask very specific questions such as legal views, past rulings, and philosophy. After all the hearings, the Senate will need a majority vote (51 out of 100) to either confirm the nominee or reject them.

These are some things that I already knew but got a refresher on, as I have always been very interested in politics and how the government works. I come from a family of lawyers and a mom who was a political science major in college, so it’s always been a point of interest for me ever since I was young. I would say what surprised me the most that I didn't know or think about is how difficult it is to overturn a Supreme Court decision. Once a ruling is made, it cannot be changed unless the Court later decides to overturn that specific case or unless a constitutional amendment is passed. This is one of the reasons why the Supreme Court justices have so much power and why so much thought goes into their decisions, as those decisions can last forever.

This is very interesting to me because my brain goes to the fact that Roe v. Wade, a decision made almost unanimously (7-2) in 1973, stated that a woman's right to have an abortion was protected under the 14th Amendment's right to privacy. Almost 50 years later, this was overturned with 5 justices voting to overturn and 4 voting not to. This was a very controversial topic, so thinking about how hard these 5 justices worked to overturn Roe v. Wade, especially since it’s not a constitutional right and many people tried to push Congress to act on this and override the Supreme Court, is mind-blowing.

As I think this is a very important takeaway, I believe that the most important thing to learn from these videos is that the Supreme Court doesn’t just decide on cases—it’s really about the Constitution and how it’s interpreted. Justices don’t get to just enforce a law because it’s what they want or believe, as they have rules. The Constitution acts almost as a rulebook for them, and they have to apply what it’s saying to issues that are currently going on in the world. This is important, as it shows that interpretation will always be evolving with our needs as a society. Also, the different opinions and beliefs of all of the justices and how they interpret the Constitution a major factors in how laws are enforced and understood.