WI: Direct Election of Supreme Court Justices

I recall reading somewhere that there was a Progressive era proposal to reform the Supreme court so that justices, rather than being appointed, would be elected by the people, or perhaps by the legislature.

So what if this had occurred?
 
Civil Rights would take much longer than OTL, there would be no Brown, and the SC would be much more politicized than OTL.
 

wormyguy

Banned
If anyone claims about activist judges now . . .

. . . hoo boy.

The Supreme Court would be the primary legislative body of governance. Congress would exist only to provide funding, and the President as a rubber stamp (since the Supreme Court can overrule him).
 
It depends on the system. Direct partisan elections like many states would lead to lynchmob judiciary - civil rights would be harmed significantly. If it was a modified Missouri Plan like Japan, it would be less politicised than direct partisan elections but still be politicised. In Japan, no judge has been ejected, and most only get the review after the first general election as the second one happens after 10 years - most are appointed age 60+ and there's mandatory retirement at 70.
 
There'd also be an issue with with interest groups with a lot of money, such as major corporations & industry groups trying to buy judges to skew the courts into favoring them (i.e. think of the recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance as one example). This is already happening in states that elect their judges. A couple of years ago, here in WA, the building industry lobby, which has a lot of money from the way it runs its industrial insurance pool and is a major backer of social conservative, anti-government, anti-tax, and anti-regulation proposals, backed a challenger to the chief justice of the state supreme court, and this challenger was defeated basically because it came out that he was being bankrolled by the building industry lobby. In West Virgina, a supreme court justice basically bought & paid for by the coal-mining industry was the deciding vote in a major case concerning the coal industry (in favor of the industry) after he refused to recuse himself due to the apparent conflict of interest. The US Supreme Court signed off on that ruling, although not without a lot of handwringing over the issue of judges being elected and the effects of campaign contributions on the workings of the courts.
 
It would become just as corrupt, partisan and obsessed with reelections are Congress and the White House.
 
I think some of you haven't thought about the obvious.

The first and biggest impact would be one helluva stronger labor movement early on. Historically the SCOTUS almost always takes the side of elites, esp the wealthy and corporations, and was one of the biggest obstacles for unions. The Warren Court was an aberration likely to never be repeated.

You'd see an end to using injunctions to break strikes, an end to charging unionists on trumped up conspiracy charges, and even the occasional prosecution of union leaders for treason, no less, just for seeking better wages.

All of this couldn't help but spill over into more rights for nonwhites much earlier on. Imagine A Phillip Randolph or Emma Tenayuca as much more powerful figures, for example.

Without SCOTUS standing in the way for the past century, you may even see labor as powerful in the US as it is in much of Europe.

As for the role of money in elections, has it occurred to some of you that would be one of the very first targets of a popularly elected SCOTUS? I have a hard time believing we wouldn't have seen campaign finance reform judicially mandated, probably well before WWII at the latest.

On another bright side, many of the mediocrities and stealth candidates for justices would've never made it far. No doubt parties would choose their best and most accomplished, or at least those with name recognition. No Clarence Thomas, no Souter, etc.
 
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