How to Improve Candidate Quality?

[vcczar]

What would be your proposed reform aimed at making it more likely that presidential, US Sen, US Reps, and SC justices are individuals with higher morals/ethics/integrity,  better informed on us government and history, and have a likely higher aptitude for the job? And anything else that you would deem a criteria for higher quality. 
 

We can then vote on all of our proposals for fun. 

[Edouard]

On 12/14/2023 at 11:41 AM, vcczar said:

What would be your proposed reform aimed at making it more likely that presidential, US Sen, US Reps, and SC justices are individuals with higher morals/ethics/integrity,  better informed on us government and history, and have a likely higher aptitude for the job? And anything else that you would deem a criteria for higher quality. 
 

We can then vote on all of our proposals for fun. 

That is a good question and I will be a little bit teasing on this

In most areas the "competence" is linked to the merit. If you want to become a doctor, a professor, a lawyer, you don't need votes but you need to be excellent in your domain.

That is not the request with elections. Free and fair elections are the only factors to determine who is a legitimate elected official. This is fair, that is the consequence of the universal voting system which also has others qualities.

As for the US Supreme Court I have clear direct proposals.

I might be wrong, but my perception of the Supreme Court is that untill the 70s it was a place where presidents sent their good friends who had helped them and had high qualities but just as a "thanks" or to put some symbols of society who were good jurists, not in the idea to create some reforms. Maybe also because US parties were less polarized too. So the Senate could give 90 votes to barely anyone.

It started to change from various reasons, first when the Supreme Court had to deliver political solutions through decisions instead of Congress like Roe v Wade (I am pro choice) or Obergefell but there are plenty others like Lawrence against Texas.

In university people tended to say that politicians prefered to let problems get to the Supreme Court rather than Congress. The problem is, that if you transfer decisions from the Congress to the Supreme Court, you also transfer politic to the Supreme Court and federal circuits.

And this is how we end with this

"We need more blue guys in the circuit to protect our rights".

Appointment of federal judges become like a Congress election, each party needs to get the most "seats" on its side.

This is so wrong in so many ways. Yes a person is never entirely neutral, but judges should be appointed regarding their merit and their impartiality, not their political color.

That's how the appointment of every judges in the US like in the Supreme Court has become a political issue.

Mitch McConnell also argues that senate blockings in the 2000s helped this, but in my opinion it also started when Congress decided to not vote on key national social issues such as abortion or same sex marriage, what they finally did last year. And they should have also found a compromise on a national legal right for abortion.

That is sure, is that judges should be elected according to their merit (which is the case most of the time) but also their impartiality (which is not so much important as a criterium nowadays for appointments).

That is why I come with several proposals :

Proposals.

Raise the quorum to 60/66 in the Senate for appointing US supreme court judges (idealistically 67).

Create a commission on selecting candidates for the Supreme Court or federal judges which should always be made in a way that prevents a party from owning a majority of seats in it.

Modify the election of judges and prosecutors in some states by an independent commission system of selecting candidates who would propose names which the local authority should then confirm by picking in the list of proposed names based on their merit and quality.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Edouard

[vcczar]

I have a huge thing I want to type out, but I need a solid hour to do it.

[pilight]

I've explained my solution about the Supreme Court on here before, but let's go once more.

The Supreme Court should not be a permanent set of justices but a rotating cast.  Each year draw one judge at random from each circuit to be the SC for the year.  Once a judge serves he can't be selected again for a number of years.  The justices that grant certiorari would do so for the next year's court, without knowing who the next justices will be.  This would serve to make the court less partisan, less political, and adhere closer to established precedent.