Despite politicians’ complaints about judges having too much power, two-thirds of Americans do not believe elected officials should have more control over federal judges, according to a new CNN poll released Saturday.
Sixty-seven percent of 1,013 people surveyed by Opinion Research Corp. on behalf of CNN said federal judges — and the decisions they make — should not be subject to more control.
Only 30 percent said they should.
I’ve never counted on politicians reflecting the will of the people. They pretend to lead us; but, I have to wonder how many of them think of that as steering a compliant and gullible mob.
Both a current and former Supreme Court justice told CNN they are not unaware of the criticism aimed at them, but they said such criticism is an integral part of life in a democracy.
“As I went through the last few years of service here at the court, I saw increasing indicator of unhappiness with judges,” said retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
But that unhappiness is a consequence of an independent judiciary, said Justice Stephen Breyer.
“It comes from the necessity that someone have the last word. And since for 200 years, people have thought in this country that the best guarantee that minorities will not be oppressed, that the Constitution will be lived up to, is to give the very last word to a group of judges who are independent,” he said.
“Not because they are wiser — they make mistakes — but because, by giving them the last word, there is a better guarantee of that neutrality, insulated from politics, that can help those whom the Constitution wanted to help, that minority that might be oppressed.”
Most of the really weird rulings are at the lower and mid level courts. So when they get reversed at the next level, you never get as much publicity as the original goofy ruling.
I think that is the source of most peoples discontent with judges. They hear about all of these goofy rulings and never hear about them being corrected so they think all judges are crazy.
There is an adequate system of checks and balances in this country. It’s just a very slow process. It’s easy to get frustrated when a single case can take years to percolate through the system. And when the judges base their rulings on the Constitution, it may not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the majority.
Don
Being that it is a CNN poll I would like to see the phrasing of the question before I actually believe what they say
The judiciary has stolen power that was not given to them by the constitution and I believe they need to be reined in ( look at the eminent domain ruling by our supreme court that just stripped the constitutional right of life liberty and PROPERTY )
[edited: see comments guide]
#2. The thing about the eminent domain ruling is that the judiciary ABDICATED power. In other words, the Supreme Court stated that the Federal courts would NOT review every use of eminent domain to determine if it violated the Takings Clause because the ultimate use was private not public.
The Court, in essence, gave more power to our duly elected officials. It was a bad ruling, but it was a case of the Court refusing to intervene when it should have. This was not a case of judicial activism, but a case of judicial passivity.
If you want to beef about judicial activism, I would beef about conservative justices striking down affirmative action programs, drug legalization, campaign finance reform and (of course) chosing our President for us.
#3 you got that right. Amazing to me that some people with ideological blinders still consider the judicial activists to be “liberals” – and the same holds true of the major media, for that matter. When CBS misinformed the public about Iraq almost as badly as right-wing propaganda conduit Faux News and only PBS watchers came close to knowing the facts (source: U. of Md. study) only an idiot could call the major media “liberal.”
Oh well. Who was it said nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public?
H.L. Mencken
#2, Maybe if you checked out the link you would know the question. To make it easier for you, I copied the questions and answers out for you.
Question: In general, do you think federal court judges are too liberal, too conservative or just about right?
Too Liberal 34%
About right, 41%
Too Conservative 20%
no opinion, 5%
Question: Do you think elected officials should have more control over federal judges and the decisions they make in court cases, or don’t you think so?
More Control 30%
No more control 67%
no opinion 3%
that pic is awesome!!
Only 30 percent said they should.
And how many of them want the current Republican-controlled House, Senate, and President to have more control over “activist” judges – but would be outraged if that allowed a future “liberal” Congress and/or President to have more control of the courts? 😉
#5 – “Because there is a vague association with the Heritage Foundation it’s all a pack of lies?” – maybe not, but it’s coming from pack of known spin artists and liars. Trust it if you want. I don’t.
Any screed that starts with the assumption that the corporate-controlled media “covering the Rep. Mark Foley ‘Pagegate’ scandal” is irresponsible after the way the same people who are now whining went after Clinton for a legal and consensual BJ… Personally, I think uncovering hypocrisy among flag-waving Congressional “superpatriots” is far from a bad thing. “Pagegate,” corruption, it’s all the same set of professional sociopaths.
As for the corporate-owned media “helping the Democrats to achieve their dream of capturing control of the House of Representatives and Senate,” if that statement isn’t enough to sink the cedibility of whatever else they say that can’t be fact-checked, I don’t know what is. C’mon, get serious.
Uhhhh… if “elected officials” means congressmen, then yes they should have more control. The judges should wield the law and stick to it, not filter it through their own individual and possibly very twisted ideologies.
This country is a republic, and what “the people” say in some random opinion poll is mostly irrelevant. If they don’t like how their representatives have voted during their time in office, they will elect somebody else; that’s how our system works. Public opinion polls are mostly an exercise in media masturbation. I would really hate to think I have a representative who mindlessly votes based on what the latest CNN/USA Today poll says; especially since those are national polls, and representatives should only be concerned (if he is concerned) with the opinions of the people in his district who he actually represents.
When historians are writing about America’s failed experiment with conservatism at the turn of the millennium, they are going to point out that the judiciary was the only wing of government that supported traditional American values.
And it was only natural that the conservatives hated the courts so much.
we dont hate then courts, we hate the judges that create law from the bench
when Liberals cant win at the polls they try to judiciate from the bench. That is wrong for either a conservative judge or a liberal one the constitution made the judiciary the group to uphold the law and set punishments not the ones who the create law.
ohh and liberalism is the failed experiment , look at then screwed up mess you made in the last 40 years 30 of which you held congress and the senate
#13. guess what – liberalism won. Even the Republicans are handing out entitlements, like the Medicare drug benefit, retreating from their favorite “free-market” projects (privatize Social Security? didn’t think so), and has embraced public education (No Child Left Untested). They are also better pork-barrel politicians than Democrats ever were – at least the Big Dig led somewhere, unlike a certain Bridge to Nowhere that I could name. Now THAT’S pork.
On the cultural front, we have a majority who does not want to push gays back into the closet and abortions back into the alleys. Only a veto that pandered to the most extreme elements kept stem-cell research from going forward.
And look at the backlash against the Federal intervention in the Terry Schaivo case and tell me that cultural conservatism is on the ascent. And multiculturalism? The cultural conservatives’ poster-boy prez speaks (some) Spanish, and did his best to corral the Hispanic vote, just like a big-city ethnic-politics Democrat.
Face it, 12 years in power and y’all are assimilated.
#13 >>we dont hate then courts, we hate the judges that create law from the bench
Oh, c’mon. We all know this is just a silly claim. You only hate the liberal judges, even though “activism” happens on conservative benches, too. I clearly remember that you didn’t complain about activist Supreme Court ruling in Bush vs. Gore.
Conservatives NEVER complain about conservative activist judges. They just hate the ones that uphold traditional American liberal democracy.
>>ohh and liberalism is the failed experiment , look at then screwed up mess you made in the last 40 years 30 of which you held congress and the senate
He. He. Those times were so much more worse then! So much more debt. So much less corruption. The domestic manufacturing base was so much smaller. College tuition and health care was so much less affordable. The world hated us so much less back then.
If you look at the big picture, America’s Golden Era happened during a time of near total consensus about liberal democracy — — even traditional conservatives like Goldwater seems kind of liberal now.
My hope and prayer is that the 10-year rise of conservatism will be a parenthesis in the American Golden Era, not a nail in its coffin!
Always remember that federal judges not only interpret the laws, but more importantly exist to strike down laws that violate the tenets upon which tthis country is supposed to operate, Primary of which is the Constitution. Laws that violate that document should be thrown out regardless of how many congresspersons vote for them.
Part of the importance of the federal court system is to ensure that this country does not become a tyrany of the masses where the majority can run rough shod over the rest of the country because they have the most votes.
It is so sad to see how many blinded and ignorant perople have somehow bought into the polarization of American and beleive that nonsensical labels like liberal and conservative have any real meaning any more.
WAKE UP PEOPLE. The powers that be have used these labels to force us apart. The populace is being divided so that it can be conquered.
It is past time for a political revolution of the vast majority of Americans that simply want a thoughtful moderate government. And refuse to be fooled by the dangerous radicals on both sides ot the spectrum.
LOL Everyone is reading this poll as some kind of referendum on the rulings from our judges. It isn’t. Whatever the drawbacks of our current legal system, what sane individual would think our elected officials could make it better?
I’m encouraged by the poll results. It shows that a majority of our citizens understand the meaning behind “separation of powers.”
#15
I think you are playing loose with the meaning of the term “liberal” in your post. In one paragraph you use it with the liberal = progressive meaning, and then later you say “liberal democracy” where liberal = liberty (i.e. classical liberalism). In that regard, Barry Goldwater was always an extreme Liberal… but he was never a progressive.