Letters: ‘The Supreme Court Has Always Been a Politicized Institution’
Readers discuss the Court’s political past—and its future.
Requiem for the Court
Over the weekend, Garrett Epps traced the history of partisanship in the Supreme Court. The Court that “claimed it was at least striving to transcend partisan politics,” he argued, is “gone forever.”
My sense is the Supreme Court has always been a politicized institution, as conceived by the Framers and, in effect turning unelected judges into super-legislators with the power to overturn law via judicial review. In my view, judicial review as a “check and balance” goes too far—it corrupts the Court, distorts its function, and undermines its legitimacy. Few Western democracies give judges such great power, and they perform much better as a result.
