Post 2 - History and Workings of the US Supreme Court

Opinion: Supreme Court's staggering deviation from precedent - CNN

For this blog post, I was asked to learn and discus the inner workings of the United State Supreme Court. Before learning about this in class and now as I watch videos and read articles, I can almost say for certain that I knew next to nothing about the Supreme Court. I am aware that it is part of the judicial branch of government, that there is a Chief Justice in the Supreme Court, and that they are selective about the cases they take, however, that was about the extent of my knowledge. I can safely say that I am quite a bit more knowledgeable now. 

First of all, what is the Supreme Court? The Supreme Court was created as one of the checks and balances of the government. In it's earliest stages, the Supreme Court was made up of 6 justices who served their lifetime and were generally obligated to take any case presented to them and hold circuit court twice a year. 

Liberal push to expand Supreme Court is all but dead among Hill Dems - POLITICO

This, however, is very different from how the supreme court works today. Today we have 9 fairly stationary Supreme Court justices that take on cases regarding the constitutionality of proposed laws  from the legislative and executive branches and vote on which cases to take and which to leave to lower powers.

The Supreme Court holds a ridiculous amount of influence over American social and political identity. It is largely through the ruling of cases at the Supreme Court that we build an understanding of what the Constitution means. Just to name a few examples, the Plessy Vs. Ferguson case of 1896  brought about the "separate but equal" pro segregation era in America because they deemed that it was not unconstitutional to separate black and white passengers. This "separate but equal" doctrine was then later deemed unconstitutional during the Brown Vs. Board of Education case which then allowed black students to attend what were previously white schools and vise versa. 

Considering the amount of power the Supreme Court has, I'm genuinely surprised how little I learned about it in school especially coming from a private school right outside of DC. I am very curious though as to why the justices of the Supreme Court get to stay there for a life time. I feel as though they should rotate out just like presidents or any other political position does. Considering how fast the times keep changing I think it would be more reasonable to have fresh eyes on the constitution every once in a while so that the way we understand the constitution will continue to progress as our country does.

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