Apparently the court poses for a new picture whenever a new justice arrives. In all of American history there have been just over 100 supreme court justices, serving an average of 16 years. Many stay on the bench for twice that long, decades after the president who appointed them has left office. Joining the supreme court can be a humbling experience, or as one justice said “being appointed to the supreme court is akin to being struck by lightning.
Many people called the 14th amendment the second bill of rights, by that they meant that just as the bill of rights was put into place to protect citizens against federal power the 14th amendment has been used pervasively in our time to protect individuals against the excess of state power. So it definitely takes its place in the constitutional galaxy right alongside the bill of rights.
The supreme court receives more than a hundred new cases every week, which is about 7,000 cases per year. Most of them arrive as written arguments attempting to persuade the court that a lower court ruling was incorrect. Each justice is assisted by a small staff of law clerks and secretaries, but each of them is individually responsible for deciding each case.The justices meet weekly to choose which cases they will accept and to discuss and vote on cases which have already been argued. I thought this quote from Dick Howard was interesting, “the people that wrote this document called the constitution somehow managed to produce words that actually guide us in solving problems 200 years later.” I’m not sure if my views really changed after watching the videos, I definitely learned a lot but I still see the supreme court as the like best of the best, or the place where laws get instated.
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