The liberal justice’s decision to retire after more than 27 years on the court allows President Joe Biden to appoint a successor who could serve for several decades.
They claimed to have the power based on deduction from the constitution. There's no document or law that actually says they have power. They very literally just said "We have this power" and everyone rolled with it. And the times when the President said "lul fuck you you have no power" the SCOTUS just flailed and squirmed because they do not, in fact, have any actual power.
There’s no document or law that actually says they have power
ok but how is this any different from how people treat the "explicit" textual powers conveyed from a constitution, say? what document or law empowers the constitution? the document of the "Constitution" is not a source of talismanic power; it's simply one more touchstone in a sea of sources of law, others of which include the Court's decisions.
all of these can be analytically ignored, the decisions of the Court or any reading of constitutional text. their power comes from the fact that they are, mostly, respected as law, but that need not be the case, just as american's no longer respect english parliment as sovereign.
You're right in the sense that it's all just handshake agreements and norms. I just think it's notworthy that the branch of government that nominally has veto powers on all laws doesn't actually derive that power from anything stated in the text, or intended by the people who designed the government. It's arguably the most consequential power of any branch of government and it's just something they decided they could do one day. Maybe on the same level as the President just deciding that he can declare wars unilaterally without input from Congress.
They claimed to have the power based on deduction from the constitution. There's no document or law that actually says they have power. They very literally just said "We have this power" and everyone rolled with it. And the times when the President said "lul fuck you you have no power" the SCOTUS just flailed and squirmed because they do not, in fact, have any actual power.
ok but how is this any different from how people treat the "explicit" textual powers conveyed from a constitution, say? what document or law empowers the constitution? the document of the "Constitution" is not a source of talismanic power; it's simply one more touchstone in a sea of sources of law, others of which include the Court's decisions.
all of these can be analytically ignored, the decisions of the Court or any reading of constitutional text. their power comes from the fact that they are, mostly, respected as law, but that need not be the case, just as american's no longer respect english parliment as sovereign.
You're right in the sense that it's all just handshake agreements and norms. I just think it's notworthy that the branch of government that nominally has veto powers on all laws doesn't actually derive that power from anything stated in the text, or intended by the people who designed the government. It's arguably the most consequential power of any branch of government and it's just something they decided they could do one day. Maybe on the same level as the President just deciding that he can declare wars unilaterally without input from Congress.