If the court is a political institution making important political decisions, then the public should debate the politics of Supreme Court decisions.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The Supreme Court needs jurists, not politicians.
A Supreme Court justice needs to understand that he is not a politician. He needs to understand that the judiciary is a passive branch of government. His decisions should not proactively seek to set policy.
I think that the legitimacy of the court would be undermined in any case if the court made a decision based on its perception of public opinion.
Of the judicial department of the Government, the Supreme Court is the head and representative, and to it must come for final decision all the great legal questions which may arise under the Constitution, the laws, or the treaties of the United States.
It is not the role of Congress to decide legal cases between private parties. That is why we have courts.
Judges should be in the business of declaring what the law is using the traditional tools of interpretation, rather than pronouncing the law as they might wish it to be in light of their own political views.
Judges should always behave judicially by adjudicating, never politically by legislating. I leave policy to policymakers. They're preeminent, but they're not omnipotent. In other words, lawmakers decide if laws pass, but judges decide if laws pass muster.
Judges rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to pressures of the times.
I don't think we need political activists on the Supreme Court or any other level of court.
Everything needs to be public. The legitimacy of the courts comes from the fact that they reason openly, on the record, based on facts.