Supreme Court

Th ere is no doubt that the U.S. Supreme Court has in-fl uenced the politics of the country. As a public body, the Court is a highly visible part of the federal government. Th is has always been so, even when the justices met briefl y twice a year in the drafty basement of the Capitol. Yet the idea that the Court itself is a political institution is controversial. Th e justices themselves have disputed that fact. Indeed, the Court has gone to great pains to avoid the appearance of making political decisions. In Luther v. Borden (1849), the Court adopted a self-denying " prudential " (judge-made) rule that it would avoid hearing cases that the legislative branch, or the people, could decide for themselves, the " political questions. " In 1946 Justice Felix Frankfurter reiterated this principle in Colegrove v. Green. Because it did nothing but hear and decide cases and controversies brought before it, and its decisions aff ected only the parties in those cases and controversies, Alexander Hamilton assured doubters, in the Federalist Papers, No. 78, that the High Court was " the weakest branch " of the new federal government. Th ere are other apparent constraints on the Court's participation in politics that arise from within the canons of the legal profession. Judges are supposed to be neutral in their approach to cases, and learned appellate court judges are supposed to ground their opinions in precedent and logic. On the Court, the high opinion of their peers and the legal community allegedly means more to them than popularity. Conceding such legal, professional, and self-imposed constraints, the Court is a vital part of U.S. politics for three reasons. First, the Court is part of a constitutional system that is inherently political. Even before the rise of the fi rst national two-party system in the mid-1790s, the Court found itself involved in politics. Th e Court declined to act as an advisory body to President George Washington on the matter of veterans' benefi ts, asserting the separation of powers doctrine. In 1793 the Court ordered the state of Georgia to pay what it owed a man named Chisholm, an out-of-state creditor, causing a constitutional crisis that prompted the passage of the Eleventh Amendment. Th ose kinds of political fric-tions—among the branches of the federal government and between the High Court and the states—continue to draw the Court into …