>> It takes a lifetime of respect to earn a seat on the Supreme Court bench.

> No, it just takes the support of the President and a sufficient number of Senators.

You're kinda both right. The legal mechanism says that "a lifetime of respect" isn't necessary, but the norms that have evolved around its use say otherwise.

Recent history demonstrates (in the extreme) that norms aren't inviolable, but I think the ones around the competency of Supreme Court confirmees is stronger than most.

The problem with SCOTUS is its reputation, which is dragged down by basically everything else in our politics. When politicians (on both sides of the aisle) openly talk about "liberal judges" and "conservative judges", and promise to appoint the kind that will rule the way they and their constituents want (as opposed to ruling according to what the law says) - and then those same people actually nominate or confirm appointees - it's hard to treat SCOTUS as some kind of cathedral where everybody is beyond reproach. Now it's just politics.

It's such a tragedy how much the actions of the SC are generalized and sound-bited by politicians and the media. If you go out and read the arguments they all give they are really quite elegant, especially when compared with the sheer stupidity of some of the debates that take place a block over

Yea... But I think this comment puts them in better light than perhaps is deserved. There are arguments SCOTUS are not defenders of the constitution. Look at Clarence Thomas's dissent on Gonzalez vs Raich, where somehow SCOTUS defended the Fed's oppressing someone for growing their own medical marijuana... In a state with legal medical marijuana. There is no constitutional basis for that. Using the Commerce Clause is laughable, at best. Like Thomas said, if the government can persecute you for growing a plant for your own consumption, inside your own home, to treat your own ailments, then they can persecute you for anything. I mean, what the fuck is that ruling even, honestly?

In other words, I think you are right that they are mostly-removed from the liberal vs conservative circus... But they are not really removed from those anti-constitutional and anti-liberty politics which both those parties defend.

There's a quote right in the Wikipedia article which talks about the practical reasoning and historical basis for the decision:

> Even respondents acknowledge the existence of an illicit market in marijuana; indeed, Raich has personally participated in that market, and Monson expresses a willingness to do so in the future. More concretely, one concern prompting inclusion of wheat grown for home consumption in the 1938 Act was that rising market prices could draw such wheat into the interstate market, resulting in lower market prices. Wickard, 317 U.S., at 128. The parallel concern making it appropriate to include marijuana grown for home consumption in the CSA is the likelihood that the high demand in the interstate market will draw such marijuana into that market. While the diversion of homegrown wheat tended to frustrate the federal interest in stabilizing prices by regulating the volume of commercial transactions in the interstate market, the diversion of homegrown marijuana tends to frustrate the federal interest in eliminating commercial transactions in the interstate market in their entirety. In both cases, the regulation is squarely within Congress' commerce power because production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity.

I am aware of Wickard v Filburn as it is regarded as a particularly, historically bad ruling, and obviously set precedent for this case.

Did you actually read this? Have you read any parts of the constitution?

Federal powers are constitutionally enumerated, and those which are not are reserved for the states.

The premise of this discussion you've quoted here -- that the feds have the duty to centralize command and control authority over modest home production of plants for one's own consumption -- is obviously not the intent of the constitution, nor is it remotely American, nor remotely consistent with liberty.

If reading to my children reduces aggregate demand for audiobooks, and therefore could impact interstate market prices, is reading to my children interstate commerce?

Pretty much.

The current legal definition seems to make the assumption that when the founders sat around writing the constitution, one of them looked up and asked for a nice punchy way to say "the complete domain of reality from the ground to the infinite reaches of the heavens above" and the reply was "oh, just say interstate commerce."

> In a state with legal medical marijuana

umm.. not familiar with this case, but:

from a federal position there is no such thing as legal marijuana, and from a constitutional position federal law trumps state law -

which is not to say i disagree about the sheer human folly of regulating the existence of plants via legislation.

Federal law trumps state law when they're in conflict. There's no conflict between federal law saying that it's illegal, and state law not saying that it's illegal. And when state legalizes it, all that means is that they're repealing state laws making it illegal.

The case itself wasn't about whether federal law trumps state law, though. It was about whether the federal law in question is constitutional in the first place - i.e. that the federal government has authority granted to it by the Constitution to prohibit a person growing marijuana plants for their own private consumption (i.e. not for sale, and especially not for sale across state lines, which would then obviously be "interstate commerce"). The plaintiff was arguing that since it's personal use and not interstate commerce, it's out of scope of the federal law. The reason why state law was relevant is to show the exact nature of harm suffered - if not for federal law, the plaintiff would have access to medical marijuana to alleviate his pain.

SCOTUS upheld an earlier decision from Wickard v. Filburn, which basically states that any production and consumption is "interstate commerce", because it affects market prices - if you grow something for your own use, you're not buying that something on the market, the reasoning went. I suggest reading about both decisions, just to see how ridiculous some of our legal reasoning is. And then keep in mind that those decisions are the only thing that makes many federal laws constitutional - it's not just drug prohibitions, but e.g. the Civil Rights Acts.

So both the left and the right have a stake in maintaining this interpretation - both want to be have broad regulatory authority on the federal level, just for different reasons. It doesn't make it any less flawed or ridiculous, but I wouldn't consider it an example of partisan court bias.

you definately sound informed on this case for sure and i'm certainly not

but it seems like there are 2/3 threads being comingled in the case:

a) illegality of marijuana itself b) interstate commerce-related issues pertaining to private growth

the 'b' parts you mention definately seem like flawed, unconstitutional reasoning (e.g. expanding the definition of commercial and therefore regulated to include things that actually arent)

as for 'a' - "And when state legalizes it, all that means is that they're repealing state laws making it illegal."

this can't be true true - otherwise there would be no regulation/taxes on dispensaries, etc. in legalization states, which there certainly is..

so it's not like there is a federal law and a 'blank' at the state.. there are contradicting state laws treating it as legal, and federal ones which say it is illegal..

The federal law requires b or it isn't valid. The only reason the Feds are allowed to regulate drugs at all is through 'b' and the ICC.

Don't downvote the parent - he's just pointing out that meanings of words depend on the context. If you look at it strictly in SCOTUS context, and use the dictionary definition of "conservative" rather than treating it as a partisan political label, a "conservative" judge is the one that tries to introduce as little innovation as possible - i.e. an adherent of originalism and textualism. Conversely, then, a "liberal" judge is the innovator, the one who actively seeks new meanings.

I'm not convinced that "originalism and textualism" is the same thing as "little innovation". The claims of originalists to divine the meaning of the text, and how that meaning applies to new objects and social structures that did not exist at the time, often strike me as remarkably innovative -- in a sense they would find pejorative.

The "conservative" judges votes align extremely well with each other and with the wishes of the political party that nominated them -- which is itself frequently not "conservative" in the sense of "conserving" something. In both cases, the claim to "conservatism" strikes me as having a lot more to do with group identity than any consistent ideology or approach.

That's because we actually do have a partisan SCOTUS, with all that entails. Words like "originalism" and "textualism" - or "living constitution" for that matter - are mostly thrown around to justify certain partisan positions, and ignored with others. I wouldn't consider Scalia to have been an originalist, for example.

That's because, by and large, it also takes considerable respect in practice to become a President or Senator (sure, you can find a few exceptions, but you can for the Supreme Court, too, and there have been a lot fewer Supreme Court justices than Senators and Presidents combined.)

Convention has proven, especially recently, not to be a great thing on which to stand the propriety of a nation.