Exploring The Impact Of Judicial Activism On The United States

Judicial activism and judicial restraint are two opposing philosophies when it comes to the Supreme Court justices' interpretations of the United States Constitution; justices appointed by the President to the Supreme Court serve for life,and thus whose decisions shape the lives of "We the people" for a long time to come.

Judicial Activism: An approach to the law where the judiciary feel less constrained by precedents and interpret the law with the aim of pursuing social change. Evidence would be if the court overturned past decisions, legislation or executive actions in order to promote conservative or liberal objectives.

In the book Courting Disaster: How the Supreme Court is Usurping the Power of Congress and the People, it sets out to identify how our government has changed and how these changes affect us and our laws. Pat Robertson wants the people to see how the Supreme Court is abusing power. Robertson shows how the federal judges are not only abusing their power but reaching beyond the power they are given. Thomas Jefferson once cautioned that, “to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions” are “a very dangerous doctrine indeed” and “one that would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy” (Robertson, Courting disaster: How the supreme court is usurping the power of Congress and the people, 2004).

I favor judicial restraint because It means that they can’t make new laws. This is so that they have to follow past rules and it makes it so that they can’t make new ones based on some of their personal beliefs. I think I am optimistic about America having a great future. I think we are on the right path and with a couple of good tweaks we can make a big step forward. America is really great right now but we are in decline so with a lot of support and the right president we can turn this country around. We are doing pretty good but things like our economy and other things need to be fixed due to horrible presidents in the past. I believe we can fix everything in America and become even better. I think we are all in this together as Americans

I believe Judicial Activism should be removed from the Supreme Court. The Original definition of Judicial Activism is defined as a philosophy of judicial decision-

The United States government consists of three main branches: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. Within the contents of this essay, the judicial branch will be examined. The judicial branch of the United States government oversees justice throughout the country by expounding and applying laws by means of a court system.1 This system functions by hearing and determining the legality of such cases.2 Sitting at the top of the United States court system is the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of the United States encompasses the federal judiciary, explicitly the judicial branch. This court is comprised of life-long serving Justices who are selected by the President of the United States and approved by the Senate.3 Cooperatively, the Supreme Court, the President, and Congress attempt to work in accord to run the three-pronged government of the United States.

Presidential Powers - The office of President of the United States is one of the most powerful in the world. The president, the Constitution says, must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." To carry out this responsibility, he or she presides over the executive branch of the federal government a vast organization numbering several million people and in addition has important legislative and judicial powers.

The Judiciary Act of 1789 granted the Supreme Court original jurisdiction to issue writs of mandamus “…to any courts appointed, or persons holding office, under the authority of the United States.” In my opinion I feel as if this case was very important, because it established the Supreme Court as a politically and constitutionally independent branch of the Federal Government, which was not clear in the early days of the Republic. This was a case that established the principle of Judicial Review. It gave the Supreme Court the authority to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional. It was one of the landmark decisions of John Marshall that strengthened the federal government. I still also feel as if this case was at the same time very petty

Respectively, each president leaves behind a judicial legacy after leaving office. President Obama is no different. Nonetheless, before we take a look into President Obama’s judicial legacy, we must understand President Obama’s influence on the courts. What President Obama has accomplished within terms of his judicial legacy is something no other presidents had done; and something forthcoming presidents will not contest. President Obama has diversified the bench in terms of gender, ethnicity, and nationality to a degree never before accomplished.

The U.S. is the only continent where it takes a lot of hard work and have dramatic conflicts to select and appoint Federal Judges. The main reason why these jobs are very contested for and sought after by many is because of how the justices have terms for their entire life.. The lesser reason why a lot people and employees in Washington care so much as to who gets appointed is the case that they play a very big part in the public’s policy making. Judicial review is the primary role of the federal courts to discuss back and forth if a law is unconstitutional. Judicial review can also regulate the acts or behaviors that the Executive and Judicial carry out in legislation and the Courts may choose to declare those actions taken by the other branches or not those actions are unconstitutional or not. Judicial review is also the main source of power in the Supreme court 's. It has the option to bar the Executive and the Judiciary to fulfill what checks and balances set out to complete. Many people in the U.S. think that judicial review has power no doubt but, the people want to know how it is applied in our government specifically.The courts could use judicial review power in two ways during the fight to confirm Clarence Thomas: a strict-constructionist approach is an option where judges will only have the power to judge based only on what is implied on the constitution (non elastic). The other argument says that judges should try to use powers that are not specifically mentioned

Judicial restraint encourages judges to limit the exercise of their own power. Judicial activism is when judges substitute their own political opinions for the application law or they act like a legislative court instead of a traditional court. The difference is judicial restraint refers to the doctrine that judges' own philosophies or policy preferences should not be injected into the law while judicial activism is the view that the Supreme Court and other judges can and should creatively reinterpret the texts of the Constitution and the laws. Impact of social and political environment for judicial restraint is when Gibbons vs. Ogden, the Supreme Court held the power to regulate interstate commerce was granted to Congress by the commerce

Judicial activism is “the doctrine that the courts should develop new legal principles when judges see a compelling need, even if this action places them in conflict with precedent or the policy decisions of elected officials” (Patterson, 609). This means that judicial activism is the belief that courts should develop new laws to bring about positive political or social change, regardless of previous laws that were put in place. The ability for judges to act against previously existing law can also be used as an ability to act against the constitution. Michael Paulsen of the magazine National Review, commented on how to fix Justice Scalia's vacant position and reduce the power that the Supreme Court has to affect the Constitution. Paulsen's

Judicial activism is very common in our everyday world and was even something would would see back in the past. Today you see judicial activism more and more everyday, judges letting their personal life affect their place of work. It seems like now judge don’t care as much as to what’s right and what’s wrong as much as they care about their personal beliefs and what they think is the correct way.

Political scientists have applied the legitimacy model to argue SSM legalization facilitates broader social acceptance and inclusion of LGBT people. The legitimacy model is based on the understanding that people’s respect for the law will prevail over their own biases. The US Supreme Court is socially heralded as the gatekeeper of justice and truth. With this inflated respect comes social acceptance of Supreme Court rulings. Thus, new policy is hypothesized to facilitate a shift in opinion (Flores 46).

The public should be free to try and examine judicial activism especially because government itself sometimes exercise judicial activism to push social reforms to let mass know its essence. The Supreme Court gives the people a way out, so that they can still stalwart improvements to the law (even though they may claim they had nothing to do with it afterward). If judicial activism stops, government will have to confront the brunt of public recoil and will once again be lax in requiring to pillar changes to current policy. This will hinder the effective action for new