We should elect Supreme Court justices

The idea that judges should be above politics is a good one, especially when applied to trial judges who make lots of judgment calls about things like evidentiary points that can swing a case but aren’t obvious to casual observers.

But the Supreme Court isn’t above politics — as recent history has made more than clear, it’s very much a part of politics. The extent of the importance attached to the Court in this election makes that plain and often, as in the Obamacare case, so does the behavior of the Court.

And to the extent that decisions are deeply influential on all sorts of aspects of Americans’ lives, the Supremes are functioning more like a legislature than a court. No one would suggest that a legislature should be “above politics,” and not accountable to the people.

An elected Supreme Court would probably also be more diverse: Right now the current Supreme Court is composed entirely of people who went to law school at Harvard or Yale. There’s nothing wrong with those schools (I went to one of ‘em myself) but at a time in American politics when many voters feel that elites don’t have their welfare in mind, it represents a troubling lack of diversity. An elected Court could draw on a wider range of candidates than those who are tailor-made to impress the Senate Judiciary Committee.