There's a reason that the court system is called the judicial branch, and not the legislative branch. Justices that sit on the California bench are appointed by the sitting Governor, not elected by the people as a representative. In California, voters are given the opportunity once every twelve years to vote if a particular justice should be retained, but if that justice is booted, the current Governor is the one that gets to make the nomination for the replacement.
Needless to say, justices do not necessarily represent the will of the people they preside over. That's why we have representatives. Representatives run for office. They tell us why they think they'd represent us well. If they do a lousy job, we vote for the other guy the next time around (two years for the State Assembly, four years for the State Senate).
The legislative branch is the one that represents the people and has the authority to propose amendments to the California Constitution. The Governor (also an elected official, I'd like to point out) also has the power to propose amendments, as well as individual citizens that may propose new legislation by popular petition.
The judicial branch is there to make sure that the laws, as stated in the constitution, are upheld. That's it. They don't get to make up their own laws. They don't get to wake up one morning and decide to overturn a constitutional amendment that went through the proper legal channels and has become law. That's not their job.
So the idea that the California Supreme Court even had a vote on whether or not to overturn the will of the people on the issue of homosexual marriage is ludicrous. Geez, this is stuff I learned in my junior high government class! California sure is nutty sometimes.
At least our President (a Harvard Law School graduate) knows that the role of the judicial branch in policy is to uphold it, not to create or alter it. Or does he?
I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract
legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect
the daily realities of people's lives, whether they can make a living and
care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome
in their own nation...I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and
identifying with people's hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient
for arriving at just decisions and outcomes. -President Obama, May 2009, on what he will look for in potential US Supreme Court Justice
I want a Justice that follows the rules. Hasn't anyone in the government read The Lord of the Flies? Don't they know what happens when the supposed leaders start making their own rules? I don't want to ruin it for you, but I can ensure you that chaos ensues.
Let's just hope that Sonia Sotomayor (Obama's pick to replace the retiring Justice Souter on the US Supreme Court) understands her job description, and rules with a firm and fair hand, giving no biased rulings based on things like gender or race.
Somehow, I doubt it. Take a look at what she said in 2005:
And as far as impartiality is concerned? Here's what she had to say about that:
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences
would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t
lived that life. -Sotomayor, 2001
Like Ralph on the final pages of The Lord of the Flies I weep for, "The end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend." Ralph's friend was the bespectacled Piggy, who was chased off a cliff by bloodthirsty young boys in pursuit of his fire-starting glasses. My friend's name is Justice, and once our country has empathetic judges that legislate from the bench on the basis of race and gender, she too will be chased off a cliff and flung to her doom.
