Visualizing the Ideological History of SCOTUS 151
langelgjm writes "An interesting exercise in quantifying and visualizing ideological shifts, the website ScotusScores.com tracks changes in the ideological history of the US Supreme Court from 1937 to 2007. Ideological positions are quantified using Martin-Quinn scores, and the chart highlights the often-bumpy transitions (Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas), as well as tendencies within each Justice's career."
Going to be more changes soon (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting, but why so limited? (Score:3, Interesting)
70 years of history is a good start, but the court is 220 years old this year, so I hope they'll be expanding their timeline. It'd be interesting to see how the court in our lifetimes compares to the previous 150 years.
Re:The Constitution is LAW (Score:4, Interesting)
To specifically avoid the ambiguity that the British non-constitution has, the Founders made sure the document was written, written well in clear lucid writing and signed by all the Founders as a sort of ratification.
Oh yeah: "Unreasonable", "necessary and proper", "probable cause", "due process", "cruel and unusual". Yep, nothing to interpret there.
Wait a minute...
Re:the Constitution is a Treaty (Score:3, Interesting)
My mostly-mercury-free-lungs appear to have very left wing sympathies.
If you want to have an EPA, pass a constitutional amendment.
Re:The Constitution is LAW (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, and it's amazing how many US people keep waving their Constitution about but don't actually read it.
It's like lot of people spouting just a few verses from the their favourite religious text but not reading the rest of it (or realizing it's not as simple as that - understanding the spirit of the document and it's implications today, takes a fair bit of effort and time).
The US constitution isn't just the amendments. Yes the amendments are pretty important, but the fact that there are a fair number of amendments should tell you the Founders didn't come up with such a well written document as so many appear to think.
See:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html [archives.gov]
And compare with the annotated version (with cases etc)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/ [cornell.edu]
You'll find there's so much interpretation required. So the Judges are extremely important since they interpret the Constitution and Laws. If you have crappy courts and judges you can get very bad interpretations.
There's plenty of room for interpretation see:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
So what is "consent of the Congress", "Office of Profit/Trust" or present? Do they have to vote on it whenever a foreign King or Queen wants to give a US Senator/President a signed picture frame? Or can Congress put "anything less than $$$/month is automatically OK" in some law and be done with it?
Re:the Constitution is a Treaty (Score:5, Interesting)
> The Constitution does not grant the Congress an explicitly enumerated power to regulate marriage.
No it doesn't. But it is still one of the more interesting questions the court will eventually have to settle. Both sides can make a strong originalist case. Observe:
The DOMA isn't about marriage per se, it is about clarifying the Full Faith and Credit clause in the Constitution. The word marriage has a specific meaning. Some states have suddenly decided (mostly by judicial fiat, but we now have some states which did it correctly) the word has a different meaning. If State A redefines a word that redefinition is not required to be accepted by State B. So just because two men are "Married" in Vermont does not mean West Virginia has to accept that their marriage laws have been redefined in ways that make a mockery of the purpose of those laws as understood in West Virginia.
The other side just has to mention that it wasn't too many years back that "Marriage" didn't include mixed race couples in quite a few states and the courts ruled that such a marriage was valid in every state. Right there you are most of the way to winning the argument. And Nevada was notorious for it's divorce laws. And marriages involving girls so young it would be statutory rape in most states wasn't illegal so long as you kept that marriage license handy. And finally, had not Utah not been required to renounce bigamy before admission to the Union their marriages would have almost certainly been legal nationwide.
So both sides can make a case, which way to rule? Most cases I can get on my soapbox and declare a winner. Can't on this one.
Useless (Score:4, Interesting)
This is completely useless. Some guys named Martin and Quinn estimate positions on a political spectrum using "Martin Quinn scores", which are not explained (the link to the explanation explains nothing.)
So, what, they guess the justices' politics and then graph their guesses?
If they don't explain how they calculated the numbers, this data is useless, or possibly worse than useless, being opinion masquerading as fact.
Re:somewhat misleading color coding (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:the Constitution is a Treaty (Score:3, Interesting)
Not as clearly as you might think. There is this thing called the "elastic clause" in Article II Section 8 which says,
So whether the EPA, DOE, and other "left wing" laws as you put it are Constitutional depends on whether "commerce" includes developing land, disposing of toxic waste, selling firearms, trafficking in drugs, distributing electricity, etc. etc. etc. I am sorry to rain on your parade but the SCOTUS has decided in various cases that indeed all those activities do constitute commerce and fall under the authority of Congress.
Now there is another relevant bit of the Constitution I like to call the the Tenth Amendment:
As I see it the Tenth Amendment should be taken into account when deciding whether something is "commerce" or not and applying the "elastic clause." As I see it there is a direct conflict between the Tenth Amendment and the elastic clause. Now given that the Constitution was not ratified in its original form and the states absolutely insisted on the Tenth Amendment being included before they would sign the Constitution, I think that of the two the Tenth Amendment should take priority. But that's just my opinion.
I am also of the opinion that when after due consideration the people want the government to do something that is not covered in Article II Section 8 they should amend the Constitution to grant that power to Congress. However the path of least resistance is to get the SCOTUS to keep stretching the definition of "commerce" and chanting "public interest."
Re:Going to be more changes soon (Score:5, Interesting)
*Insert Bentsen/Quayle joke here.
**Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts
Re:I like visualization (Score:3, Interesting)
The official histories were rewritten and now Republicans have ALWAYS been racists and Democrats have ALWAYS been the enlightened folk. But it ain't so.
<img src="wharrgarbl.jpg">