The Current System Of Appointment

Under the U.S. Constitution, this appointment is a lifelong position that will only be nullified if the judge resigns their post or dies in office. This creates serious contests within the partisan political environment found among federal representatives, for any candidate appointed to this post helps define the direction of the Supreme Court for the rest of their life. Thus, it is frequently believed that a president who appoints a judge to the Supreme Court is creating a legacy, helping to shape the direction of the laws for the country for a time long after their presidency has expired. This makes the selection of a judge a hotly contested process.

The Constitution states that federal judges are to be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. They hold office during good behavior, typically, for life. Through Congressional impeachment proceedings, federal judges may be removed from office for misbehavior.

There are two major factors that affect the confirmation process of a president’s nominees; one is party affiliation. Party affiliation is very important when the Senate is confirming a nominee, because Senate confirms nominees by a ⅔ vote. This could be very crucial to the president and his or her nominee, because if the majority of the Senate is part of the opposing party, this becomes difficult for the president to get his nominee confirmed. The second political factor is qualification to become a judge or justice. The Senate does not want an unqualified judge who does not know what he or she is doing. It is important to the Senate to approve someone who has experience in the judicial field than someone who has no experience at all. The

The United States judicial branch to the general American public can seem insulated from politics, because of their adversarial system, that does not allow judges to choose their cases. The judicial branch unlike, their two counterparts, the legislative and executive at large rely on the respect of the American people and the heads of the two other branches. In appointing members of the federal judiciary, Presidents appoint members who resemble their political ideologies and their likelihood of confirmation in the Senate, the Senate confirms these members based on their performance on the litmus test and Senatorial courtesy. Courts, specifically the Supreme Court, make decisions based on the Constitution, but the legislative branch has the

There is an open seat in the supreme court. Since the death of justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016, President Barack Obama has attempted to appoint judge Merrick Garland to fill this vacancy. However, the currently Republican U.S. Senate has refused to act on the nomination. This is not the first time the Senate has disagreed with the president's choice of nominee. The Senate confirms just around eighty percent of the president's nominations. There is a strong rationale behind this two-tiered appointment system. Seats in the Supreme Court are extremely important positions to hold; the Supreme Court has the role of interpreting the text of the Constitution and using that interpretation

This allows the executive branch to determine the makeup of the judiciary branch, and through it exercise power over the legislative branch. Because the men and women appointed to the Supreme Court remain there for life, with no public elections to possibly remove them, a president can affect politics through his choice of appointees for decades after his time in office has ended (Romance, July 29). But this, too, is limited by the Congress as the president’s judicial appointments are subject to the consent of the Senate (Landy and Milkis, 289).

In the State of Texas, we have a rather odd way of selecting which judges will and will not be able to have a job in the State of Texas. The way we select them is the same way that we decide who is going to be the governor of the State of Texas, we elected them. There are many flaws with choosing election as the way of picking who will be judges. Some of the flaws are that there will possibly be a lack of minority chosen, voters tend to know little to none information about the local election let alone the candidates up for judges, and finally people contributing to campaigns. While few people know that this how we elected judges in Texas, but even fewer realize the consequences the will continue to pile up if we do not do something to put an end to this ludicrous way of choosing an influential position of office.

“The framers gave life tenure to federal judges to ensure an independent judiciary, a judiciary that would not bow to the political pressure of the day.” What the framers failed to recognize is that justices would be reluctant to leave their position for persona or political reasons or before mental decline. My 28th amendment will help to solve these problems.

A crucial argument left unanswered is if state judges should be appointed or elected? Conflicting views raise many questions about how things would change in the court system. According to the article Justice at Stake, “One of the hottest debates in judicial politics today is whether judges should be chosen through competitive election or appointments. Each side has pros and cons”. Many states elect their judges through a merit selection process or appoint them through a process called the partisan election. Texas judges use partisan election where judges are elected by the people. Another question that arises is if Texas should continue using the partisan election to elect their judges when it may seem untrustworthy. A decision could be discussed on the process in electing state judges such as on the topics of improvements, conflictions, and which process seems more reasonable. Improvements can be made to the process of electing state judges… Overall, the appointment of judges varies by state, but looking at Texas’ past and present justice system will determine whether Texas should continue to elect, or switch over to appoint.

We have come across an uncommon issue which is, congress, specifically senate, is not making any progress in advising or consenting the nominee U.S. Supreme Court Judge chosen by Obama. Through logic, senate’s lack of responsiveness is not okay. Obama should appoint Merrick Garland because the Senate has not even stated doing its job in holding hearings or voting. Further, it has not done its constitutional role of advice and consent. Structurally, the powers of Judge appointments are in the presidents’ section of the Constitution meaning they are shared powers, but more like shared obligations. The awareness of this is seen where FDR threatened to pack the court because that power was delegated to him. The Senate has this obligation, they have not started the process, yet they know they have to, they know they can vote no, but they just want to leave it to the next president. In Humphrey’s we see that Congress has intervention in the inferior offices, but only through statute, meaning that only through statute can congress be involved sometimes. This ties into how through legal matters they do advice and consent. In the prize cases, we see that Lincoln was allowed to take from an industry outside of the war exception, absent of congresses authorization, because they were unsure if there was even a war at the times of civil war. In Goldwater v. carter, the plurality find for carter senate’s role ends at ratification when it comes to ratifying treaties, yet they also find

The United States president, Barack Obama, nominated a longtime federal judge Merrick Garland to take the position of the Supreme Court and replace the former justice, Antonin Scalia. Merrick Garland’s past decisions related to different issues had made him the talk of the town. Although Garland has a 19 year record on the U.S. court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, this does not lend him to a fast evaluation (Mcshane).

Each state within the United States of America (USA) has its own unique judicial selection process within its court system. The judicial processes vary from court to court depending on a particular state. This paper analyses these processes, the qualifications for selecting the judges and the steps for removing judges from office, as it applies in the USA states of New York and Texas.

When a judge is selected through executive appointment, the governor or legislature from the state they are in will choose them from a large selection of possible candidate. Traditionally, this process gives all of the power to appoint a judge solely to the governor. This process is the least effective of all three. There are zero states who still solely practice this method traditionally and there is a good reason for that. Essentially, the governor of a state can purely pick any eligible candidate. A governor could appoint someone that would help them further their political agenda. This is not a reasonable way to select a good candidate. There has to be regulations and systems in place that choose the most qualified candidate. Many states utilize executive appointment but have added methods to keep the governor in check. For example, in New Jersey a governor can

Therefore, the president is said to be the only one with the ability to determine who is best fit to be in offices in the Constitution. Being appointed for life was deemed necessary by the Founding Fathers as well, because they felt that the judges would need an extensive amount of time, such as a life term, to follow the constitution. “That inflexible and uniform adherence to the rights of the Constitution, and of individuals, which we perceive to be indispensable in the courts of justice, can certainly not be expected from judges who hold their offices by a temporary commission. Periodical appointments, however regulated, or by whomsoever made, would, in some way or other, be fatal to their necessary independence.” Times have changed, the general needs to have the right to appoint the Supreme Court justices should be left to the citizens of the country, not the president. The citizens of America should have the right to choose those that will interpret the Constitution and make new policies that will affect everyone in the country through court cases during their term on the bench. Those who serve on the federal judiciary bench need to be responsible for their actions and therefor, need to answer to the citizens that would elect them.

The combination of the nomination and majority vote is working better than any other position-filling strategies. There is a high legitimacy when the President chooses who he suspects will fulfill the position to the greatest of their ability. This is brought to light by how our President Obama has spent a month seeking for his hopeful successor of former Justice John Paul Stevens, in this case Elena Kagan (Baker Zeleny). President Obama had interviewed other potential nominees, clearly spending substantial time acquainting himself with their qualifications, met or unmet, towards the prestige of the Supreme Court Justice. When the President allots that much time to find a viable successor in the Supreme Court it clarifies how crucial it is to fill the position with dignity. The commonplace lengthy process of searching for the next Justice and the majority vote required by the Senate is too much to ignore. Even if the President was careless enough to haphazardly select a Justice, the Senate consists of 100 members of various parties who could nullify the Presidents nominee by a majority vote against said person. The most prominent backup in the process of admitting a Justice is the multi-partied Senate, and as long as they are not corrupt there will be a lock against easy access to the position of the Supreme Court Justice. Another reason to stay parallel to the U.S. Constitution is the dilemma of public elections and how scarce they are in proportion to the