60% of voters say Supreme Court should base rulings “Off of Constitution”

this is one of my biggest fears about McCain winning. he will appoint more super conservatives who are out of touch with reality

Of course people want the Constitution to be the basis of the SCOTUS rulings. They just happen to want it based on their interpretations of the Constitution. Also, the most "activist" members of the Court are the most conservative ones.

http://abajournal.com/news/study_labels_thomas_most_partisan_justice_scalia_most_activist/

Hmmm... in the Declaration of Independence it says, "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our froentiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions....

So, if you ask me I think that a declaration of independence and the constitution has some atoning to do.

When the Constitution was written and signed women did not vote, black folks did not vote, nor did anyone who did not own land.

amending the constitution is in order.

I say that the constitution should be reviewed, edited, and then all court rulings should be based off of it. I think the original early parts of the constitution needs to be kept, but with freedom FROM religion included with freedom of religion. By this I don't mean freedom from preachers or freedom from hearing someone pray, since those aren't rights. I mean freedom from religion as in the state remain neutral towards religion. This means not legislating school pray, while at the same time not prohibiting kids from praying to themselves in a way so it won't interrupt the activities in a neutral public center of learning. I think that the later parts need to be more carefully examined, especially the 16th amendment.

Supreme Court judges base their rulings off of the Constitution and precedent whenever possible. Most rulings reach the Supreme court when there is little or no precedent or mention in the Constitution. So basing their decision on fairness and equity is what they have left in making their decisions. And often their ideology unfortunately.

All the more reason to have balance on the Supreme Court.

...I'm confused. Why are all of you disagreeing with having rulings based off the Constitution? I myself am quite a fan of the Constition...and opening it for editions sounds like a dangerous thing to do. Who knows what would be revised?

i agree argyle, amending the constitution could be a very sliipery thing. Second for the last 20 years the government has basically fucked alot of things up. What makes everyone so sure they wouldnt fuck up the "new" constitution.

Well DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have seen the Supremes use international law and what is custom in other countries as something to base their decisions on. Everything but chicken entrails.
From some of the previous posters, I would be interested in knowing what the Constitution has to atone for or what we need to amend in that document

Issues like this get my blood boiling because I do agree with the founders on how our government should operate. Unfortunately as the article reports, there are way too many people who do not agree with the founding fathers. Overall what I find most disturbing is our reliance upon the US Supreme Court when we are in fact a constitutional republic and therefore designed (in theory or until the twentieth century) for the sates to operate relatively independent of one another.

Any idea of fairness and equality when applied to our current application of the US Supreme Court is ridiculous. Fairness and equality are not concepts to be dispensed on a national level by a tribunal of individuals who are supposed to protect inherent rights. In essence the whole idea runs counter to the true raison d'être of the Supreme Court system.

If you want fairness and equality you should argue in favor of individual rights first, and state rights second. Then you should vote with your feet instead of trying to apply your style of government to something that doesn’t agree with your own philosophy. This one size fits all mentality is intellectually dishonest and favored primarily by those who seek to create the equally unattainable utopian society.

Only 60%? That's amazing. That's stunning really. 40% of Americans think court rulings should be made based on something other than our own Constitution. Scary.