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It's easy to believe the news around us that there's nothing good coming out of Washington. But each Thursday, I'll give you the scoop on the good news coming out of Washington. Both an update on what's happening in Washington and how you can get involved with this thing called democracy.
Katherine Getty 0:00
Who says hard things can't be fun? Well, I don't really know if home buying is hard, but I do know the next incredible duo of Lindsay sitkoff And Matt Windsor, licensed real estate agents in the DMV, make home buying fun. They're kind, talented and walk their clients through every step from the first inkling of wanting to purchase to signing on the dotted line and everything in between. Lindsey And Matt, listen to your every need and help you find that perfect next home. For listeners of the your good news podcast. They'd love to help you. Head to Lindsay and matt.com. That's LYNDSI and M A. T t.com. To learn more about this duo, head to the shownotes to reach out and mention my name Catherine from New York, good news podcast when you do. Hi, and welcome to the your good news podcast with me your host, Katherine Getty. Each Thursday, I'll give you the scoop on the good news coming out of Washington, and how you can get involved with this thing called democracy. Welcome back to another episode of The York good news podcast. Congress remains on recess given July 4 Holiday earlier this week. So the news coming out of Washington has really been all things Supreme Court. Today, I'm going to give you first the basis of the court. Second, some history of the court. Third, the pathway for how cases make it to the Supreme Court. And lastly, I'll give you some food for thought some of my hot takes on this branch of government. So first, the basis of the Court. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the US federal judiciary system and serves as the final arbiter in interpreting and applying law. The basis of the Supreme Court is from Article Three of the Constitution, in which the constitution grants the Supreme Court its authority and outline to jurisdiction. But specific powers and responsibilities of the court are further divided by statute such as the Judiciary Act of 1789 and subsequent legislation. And these laws establish the number of justices the courts rules and procedures, and its relationship with other federal and state courts. When I did some research on the Supreme Court, I found that there are a few main areas and maybe most notably, how the Supreme Court and its authority has influence over the US. First Judicial Review. Judicial Review allows the court to review laws, review acts of the executive branch, review lower court decisions, to determine constitutionality. This power was established by the landmark case Marbury vs. Madison, I feel like we've heard this maybe in civics class when we were growing up. But at that time that decision, Marbury vs. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall declare that it is the duty of the court to interpret the Constitution and strike down laws that conflict with the Constitution. Another feature of kind of where their, like power lies, is that the Supreme Court derives its authority from the principle of Starry decisis and what it means to stand by things decided starry decisis is the doctrine that courts should generally hear to precedent to follow prior decisions when deciding cases. And this principle provides stability, consistency and predictability in the law. A lot of people if you're thinking kind of in current times, a lot of people felt like the decision of jobs last year of overturning Roe versus Wade, conflicted with that others would say the opposite. So but that is kind of the starry decisis, to stand by things decided and the last basis of power is the Supreme Court's basis ultimately rests on the trust and respect to the American people. I'm going to talk a little bit more about this when I give some hot takes. But I think that is definitely been challenged in the last few years. And I sometimes would argue fair and sometimes argue not fair. But I think it's important to realize that the Court's decisions, shape legal landscape in the US and have significant impact on society. So we now have the basis of the court. Let's take a step and clarify how Article Three of the Constitution and the legislation greater define their role. They're tasked with deciding whether laws conflict with the Constitution or executive actions. And like I said earlier, their decisions shape American society. So when it comes to the history, interestingly enough, when I was again, doing some more research, I found that basically, it was based on who the Chief Justice was at the time because they have a outsized role as the leader of kind of shaping how decisions are made. When it comes to like the early years of the Supreme Court, so think 1789 to 1800. This was real The kind of trying to figure out how this upper body was going, this body was going to work. This 1789 Judiciary Act that I talked about a little bit earlier, created a six member court and John Jay was appointed as the courts Chief Justice, then you fast forward another kind of landmark time in the court was between 1865 and 1893. Really the Reconstruction Era. This was following the Civil War, the court had decided number of cases and applying new rights, and the 14th amendment that had been ratified and 1868 had expanded civil rights and due process protections, and the court played a major role in protecting these. And to give you two more kind of pieces of history. There was the New Deal time, so 1930 to 1969. This is when New Deal programs coming out of the Great Depression. There are a lot of different things happening in the government. And the court had to decide how they are going to deal with things like board versus education, the desegregation of schools or Miranda versus Arizona 1966, which is if you think about Miranda rights, that is the case. And it requires law enforcement to share constitutional rights to those being arrested. This period of time also saw a court packing plan. When you think about the size of the court, there's you often kind of hear if a decision doesn't go a certain way, or it does go a certain way, there's always the question of should we make the court bigger. That's that court packing plan that has come up time and time again. And we have seen the court continued to, in public opinion kind of tend to calm down after the decision has been made. But I raised that because you've heard it over the last few years of should the court look different. And then I would say the last kind of key area is from 1970s to now. And this is really a time where the Supreme Court continue to shape American law with thinking about Roe versus Wade and 73 or Bush versus Gore in 2000. The court has had to grapple with really large issues in American culture, campaign finance, marriage equality. And you see this continually kind of bubbling up the questions bubble up about why have Why is the Supreme Court kind of look the way it does. I think I wanted to highlight this history to kind of give you some key points to thinking about, okay, we know the basis of the court is really to see our laws or actions in the executive constitutional, they need to typically stay within what has already been decided their their kind of basis is based on the American people's trust. We know some history. So how does a case get to the Supreme Court? First, it's in trial courts.
The legal process typically begins in trial courts with state and federal and parties involved in this dispute, present their arguments and the trial court makes a judgment based on the facts. Then if a party is dissatisfied with the decision of the court, you will see it go to an appellate court. The appellate court may affirm, reverse or modify the trial court's decision, then a petition for a writ of an eye, I'm probably going to butcher how to say this here, a Tory parties who wish to have their case heard by the Supreme Court must file this petition. And the petition is basically a formal crisis Supreme Court review a lower court's decision remembering Supreme Court is the final arbiter, then it takes the rule of four, the Supreme Court employs the rule of four, which means that at least four of the nine justices must agree to grant the petition and hear the case. Their sessions begin in October and end in June. That's typically why we see all these massive decisions coming out at the end of June. Then there's the briefing and oral arguments phase. So they've had the rule of four, they've granted the petition, they are going to hear the briefing and oral arguments, both parties submit briefs, which are written legal arguments, then there is a date set, typically, like I said in the fall, and then you move towards, like I said June where the decision comes out. And the majority opinion is written by one of the justices outlining the courts reasoning and decision. And justices who disagree can also write a dissenting opinion. That's why you've seen over the last couple of weeks, the majority opinion and the dissent, and it's important that we see both of those sides. It's really important to note though that the Supreme Court receives countless petitions each year but it has a limited capacity and only hears a fraction of the cases brought before it. The process of case selection involves careful consideration of legal significance, what it could mean for addressing kind of where the country Is that? So I want to bring this home. I've given you the basis. I've given you some history some, some background, I've talked about how does a case get from the trial court up to the Supreme Court. But I also want to just raise kind of my own thoughts. I think that far too often we, in this is my opinion. So far too often, I think we are allowing the courts to make legal policy to make policy that impacts the country. And I think that both parties have sometimes missed the opportunity to really legislate on things they think are important, because it's too difficult. And I think that we cannot become reliant upon the courts fixing everything. Our power, is in electing members of Congress who believe in what we believe in will work across the aisle, will take our country forward. And we cannot allow it to become a country that waits for the Supreme Court to say everything. Now is the Supreme Court really important in protecting our our rights and freedoms? Absolutely. But we also need to have a legislative branch that is robust, that is doing things because parties have had control of the House, the Senate and the presidency, and have not done massive things and then said, Well, next time you put us in power, we're going to do it, we need to start seeing action. And so you know, there's going to be a lot of noise about the Supreme Court, allowing the noise, understanding the basis of the core, understanding the history, understanding how it gets there, understanding that it's only a fraction of the cases that actually get there. And knowing that our way of action is voting for people who will make better laws that don't have to get decided by the Supreme Court. You know, it's really important that we continue to legislate, but I also think that we have become so absolute, and our views that we need to recognize that the middle ground is somewhere there. And that the Supreme Court is, you know, people that get to pick who are on the Supreme Court or the presidents, you know, you think about how a Supreme Court justice, typically they fall in line, to some degree with the views of the person picking you think about, you know, I think it's important to realize that elections have consequences. I feel like that said, so many times what presidents do get to select if there is a death of Justice or a retirement, they get to pick who's on the court. Now, I would caution to say, let's not put a Republican or Democrat label on them. I think it's easy to want to do that. But each of them have their own kind of views, but they do fall in line with the people that pick them. And I think we can't forget that fact of the people that we select to be our president, are going to have a really critical role for a very long time because a Supreme Court justice is an appointment for life. They can choose to retire, they, you know, they don't choose to die. But that is a lifetime appointment. And so let's not forget that piece of the puzzle to have like, thinking about the issues that are important for presidency as we come up on 2024. Is the Supreme Court really important to you then vote for someone who you believe will put a justice that falls in line with your beliefs. And I hope that this episode kind of pulls the curtain a little bit back gives you some power and understanding what is actually the Supreme Court. Why do we have it? What is the history of it? And how can we continue to engage with this constitutional republic that we have in a really great way. And that is it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for joining along. I hope this little primer on the Supreme Court and some of my thoughts about the Supreme Court have been interesting. As always, like and subscribe. Make sure that when you subscribe, every Thursday you'll get another episode of the Oregon news podcast. Share with someone you know. Find me on Instagram at at Katherine Getty. And as always tune in next week to another episode of the your good news podcast.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai