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| Chapter 12: The Federal Courts |
| Get Involved |
President George W. Bush nominated his White House Counsel, Harriet Miers, to the United States Supreme Court on Oct. 3, 2005. Miers had extensive experience as a professional litigator. But she had never served as a judge, and her opinions about and qualifications to interpret U.S. constitutional law were unclear. Bush’s nomination was controversial from the beginning, not only with the White House’s liberal critics, but also among many traditional supporters. Several prominent conservative scholars and think tanks expressed reservations with the selection.
Pressure on the White House did not only come from inside the D.C. Beltway. Many conservative activists and grassroots bloggers argued that a Supreme Court nomination should be filled by an established, known conservative candidate. For weeks, conservative activists throughout the country debated the Miers nomination by email, text message, and in popular online forums like Free Republic. They let their elected officials in the United States Senate hear their concerns. Gradually public opinion turned against the Miers nomination, both within D.C. and outside the corridors of power. By the end of October, Miers had withdrawn her nomination. It is difficult to estimate how much influence the conservative grassroots had on the Miers nomination, just as it is difficult to measure the influence of public opinion on the Supreme Court. Unlike the Congress or the Presidency, the Supreme Court does not base its decisions on the popular will. Judges interpret the Constitution, using previously existing case law and precedent. But the Internet has been a useful tool for shedding light and insight into a branch of government whose workings often seem secretive and mysterious to everyday Americans. |
1. One of the most useful websites to study the past and present Supreme Court is the Oyez Project:
www.oyez.org Within Oyez, you can find information about past and present Supreme Court justices, and take virtual tours of the Court. Most valuable, you can access years of online oral arguments, listening to actual debates as they took place between the justices and lawyer advocates. Go to Oyez and click on the “Cases” link, and click on the most recent year. What is one of the cases the Supreme Court has recently heard? What is the controversy at stake? |
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| 1b. On Oyez, click on “Justices” and examine the biographies of the current Supreme Court justices. Who is currently the youngest sitting member of the Supreme Court? Who is the oldest? |
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2. More useful educator resources on the Supreme Court include Justice Learning and the Annenberg Classroom and the Sunnylands’ Constitution Project, located at http://www.annenbergclassroom.org/.
Visit the “The Constitution in Context” link below: http://sunnylandsclassroom.org/Asset.aspx?id=1261 Who, according to the expert commentators, was the greatest Supreme Court justice of all time, and why? |
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| 2b. What would be lost without the presence of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and why? |
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3. The Supreme Court regularly attracts some of the brightest legal scholars in the United States to blog about its decisions and politics.
Some of the prominent legal blogs today are: Volokh Conspiracy
The Supreme Court Blog
Balkinization Visit one of the above blogs. Which blog did you visit? |
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| 3b. What are some of the current issues before the federal courts that the blogger is concerned about? |
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