Bush or Kerry?

[Kristina]

Ok, this really should go back on topic but I just need to clear up some things beforehand because there's some misinformation floating around here.

1. Supreme Court Justices are neither Democratic or Republican. Those are political parties and judges are supposed to be non-partisan. Of course, they do lean certain way in ideologies. Which brings me to...

2. Besides the fact that President's don't pick someone from their party because of the aforementioned fact, they don't necessarily pick someone with their own ideology. There are 7 Republican-President appointed Justices: Rehnquist (Nixon), Stevens (Ford), O'Conner, Scalia, Kennedy (Reagan), and Souter and Thomas (Bush Sr.). There are 2 Democrat-President appointed Justices: Ginsberg and Breyer. However there's hardly ever been a vote that's been 7-2 favoring conservatives. Why in the world does this happen? Well, a lot has to do with the fact that the Senate has to confirm the nominees so justices aren't straight party line with the President who nominated them. So having a shift in Presidency won't dramatically affect the Supreme Court depending on who's in control of the Senate.

3. Where one would get the notion that we have a Democratic (or even liberal) Supreme Court is a little puzzling to me. This Supreme Court article along with many other articles about court rulings all generally say that Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas are typically conservative leaning, Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg, and Breyer are typically liberally leaning and O'Connor's a swing voter that based on history, usually leans right.

Sorry for the government lesson. I DO believe this election is important, but less so for the Supreme Court element.