3. Who are the Supreme Court justices?

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About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we think about Supreme Court justices, how they get appointed, and why this matters to how we think about the Supreme Court, focusing in particular on: (i) the criteria one has to meet to be appointed to the Supreme Court; (ii) the kinds of people who have been appointed to the Supreme Court – and why this matters; (iii) the extent to which the President can pick whoever he/she wants for the Supreme Court, the limitations on their choice; (iv) the extent to which the nomination process has become more ‘politicised’ in recent decades; (v) the extent to which the politicisation of the nominations process results in the politicisation of the justices’ decisions themselves.

Course

In this course, Dr Emma Long (University of East Anglia) provides an introduction to the Supreme Court of the United States. In the first module, we think about what the Supreme Court is, when it was set up, and how it works. After that, in the second module, we think about what kinds of cases make it to the Supreme Court and how they are processed once they get there. In the third module, we think about the Supreme Court justices themselves, before turning in the fourth module to consider three theories of judicial decision-making: the legal model, the attitudinal model, and rational choice theory. In the fifth module, we think about the role of the judiciary in relation to the legislature, focusing on the concepts of judicial activism and restraint, originalism and living constitutionalism.

Lecturer

Dr Emma Long is Senior Lecturer in American Studies at the University of East Anglia. Her research interests focus on the history of the US Constitution and the Supreme Court. Although interested in all aspects of this history, her particular focus is on the period since 1945 and on the rights contained in the Bill of Rights. Emma also has an interest in the interaction of religion and politics in American history, particularly issues related to the idea of the “separation of church and state” that emerge from the First Amendment.