Judges Decision Making Process

Lex Brown
Judicial Processes
4/10/2015
Dr. Scott
Judges Decision’s Based on Region Throughout this semester we have learned about the processes, decision making, and what influences judges in their siding on court cases. We have learned that judges make decisions based on their political party affiliation. They also make decisions on according to their own beliefs or morals. But what makes someone fall into the political party they are in? Most say their beliefs and morals, however I do not disagree, I believe there is more to it. Taking it a step further, how or why someone believes what they do can usually be traced back to their parents, upbringing, family, and region of the United States they are from. For example take the Bush
family. George H. W. Bush resided in Texas for a long duration of his pre-presidential life. President H. W. Bush ran as a Republican and appointed David Souter who was defined as a radical constitutionalist and conservative from New Hampshire. The second Supreme Court Justice he appointed was Clarence Thomas, who grew up in Georgia, and was also a strict constitutionalist and conservative. George H. W. Bush’s son, President George W. Bush was also a conservative in office. Bush nominated Justice Robert’s an Indianan who also practiced conservative decision making and Samuel Alito, a Roman Catholic who was said to be “one of the most conservative justices on the Court” from New Jersey. George H. W. Bush’s other son and George W. Bush’s brother, Jeb Bush is a possible candidate for the 2016 elections for the Republican party. All three Bush’s are from Texas, are republicans, and minus Jeb, appointed Conservative Supreme Court Justices. Texas is considered a blue, or mostly conservative, state. The region and upbringing of the younger Bush brothers could have been influenced by their family and the state they grew up in. What I want to take a closer look at is Supreme Court Justice’s decisions based on where they are from. I will look into Justices now serving on the bench and evaluate their decisions they have made concerning the new healthcare laws. I will also look at Justice’s decision and home-state on hot-button issues involving controversial topics like gay marriage and abortion. I will be looking at the color of the state they are from, thus meaning if the majority of the state voted Republican or Democratic in the most frequent presidential election. Roe v. Wade was a 1971 case involving the legality of an abortion. Texas law prohibited abortions, except to save the mother’s life. Roe said that this law infringed upon her constitutional rights. Richard Nixon, a republican, was the President during the time of the case. Below is the electoral map during 1968 broken up by state.

The question in Roe v.
Wade was whether or not the Constitution embraces a women’s right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion. The Court decided, in a 7 to 2 vote, that a women did have the right to have an abortion under the 14th amendment being the right to privacy. Now, the Supreme Court bench during this time was praised for being “one of the more balanced Supreme Court benches”, meaning there was a relatively equal split of those who tended to vote liberal and those who tended to vote conservative. The two Supreme Court Justices who voted against the right to abortion were Justice White and Justice Rehnquist. Justice White tended to have a more liberal outlook when making decisions. Although he is from a red, or Republican state, Colorado, at the time he was appointed by President Kennedy who was, like White, a liberal. In this case White chose not to turn to the Constitution when making his decision on the case but to stick to his own beliefs on whether abortion was right or wrong. The second Justice to vote against the legality of abortion was Justice Rehnquist a conservative from Wisconsin. On the opposite end of the meter, Rehnquist came from a state who voted Republican as well, but had more of a conservative approach to his decision making. The case of Roe v. Wade is a prime example of how balanced the bench was at the time. In the instance of Roe v. Wade the Justices tended to make their decision based more-so on their beliefs than on their Political
Party affiliation. Hollingsworth v. Perry is a court case in 2012 which argued that the restriction of same-sex marriage in California infringed the 14th Amendment right of equal protection. In 2008 California passed Proposition 8 which amended California’s state Constitution to provide that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized. Hollingsworth v. Perry argued that the state cannot define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Supreme Court ruled that defining marriage in Proposition 8, is in fact, unconstitutional in a 5-4 vote. Below is the electoral map of the 2012 Presidential elections.

In the 5-4 decision ruling some decisions worth noting are that 3 of the 4 Justices who voted against gay marriage were considered conservative decision makers. Justice Kennedy, although from California was appointed by republican, President Reagan. This is interesting considering California, in 2012, voted mainly blue. Justice Breyer, also from California, voted for equality of marriage. The difference between the two Justices is who appointed them. Justice Breyer was appointed by Clinton, a Democratic President. Justice Breyer tends to base his decision more-so on the basis of the 2012, mostly liberal, decision making, in comparison to Justice Kennedy’s conservative thoughts. Not surprising that Justice Thomas voted against equality of marriage in California. Justice Thomas was appointed by President Bush and sides conservatively. Justice Thomas is from Georgia which is predominately red. Coincidentally, Justice Alito, who was appointed by baby Bush also voted against the case. The decision I found to be most interesting was that of Justice Sotomayor. Justice Sotomayor was appointed by President Obama and is from New York, which as shown above, voted liberally, and for Obama in the 2012 election. Justice Sotomayor’s decisions on hot button issues, such as abortion and gay marriage, are a majority of time not in favor of the stereotypical “liberal thinking” you would expect her to have. Justice Kagan, who is also from New York and appointed by President Obama voted in favor of the equality of marriage in the state of California. Now looking more previously at the Health Care laws and whether or not they are constitutional. The Justices (Roberts, Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Sotomayor) had a 5-4 decision on both the topics of individual mandate being upheld as a tax and Medicaid expansion upheld, but limited. In both instances Justices Kennedy, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas thought the laws to be unconstitutional. All four of these Justices are the Conservative decision makers. Only Justice Roberts (who voted yes but with limitations) were conservative and voted for the laws. This shows that, on this bench, Justices like to stick to their groups when deciding on the “Obamacare” laws. Their decisions are based on their party affiliation and reflect the opinions of the President that appointed them. In conclusion I was very surprised at what I had found out through my research. I thought that the region or state a Justice came from would affect his or her decision more-so than what it actually did. But a pattern I did find was votes based on the political party affiliation of the President that elected them. Of course this would make sense for the President in office would ideally like to appoint a Justice with the same opinions and beliefs as they do. However, a state does, in fact, play into the Justice’s decision in the long run. Using President Obama as an example. President Obama is from Illinois, a blue, or liberal state. When Obama was elected he appointed two Justices from New York, in which, at this time is also a blue state. Therefor when Obama’s healthcare law went through the Supreme Court both New York Justices (Sotomayor and Kagan) voted in favor of the law. So, in a chain, blue state Illinois produced a blue President who appointed two blue Justices from blue New York who then voted in favor of his law. The same theory or pattern is easy to determine in the Justices that either Bush appointed. Both came from a red state (Texas), appointed red Justices, who had red decisions. So ultimately, yes, the region in which a politician comes from directly affects the Justices vote (for the most part).
But, the politician that this mostly affects is the President the state produces. The President then gets to appoint Justices, if there are any openings, and choose Justices with their same ideology from states who share the same ideas as the President appointing them. I also found out that states tend to fluctuate on the political party they vote for. Ten to fifteen years ago a majority of the states voted Republican. Now we are starting to see a more Democratic shift. The selecting and decision making of the Supreme Court Justices, is like everything else in politics, just that… a bunch of politics.

Work Cited
"HOLLINGSWORTH v. PERRY." Hollingsworth v. Perry. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.
"How the Justices Ruled on the Health Care Law." The New York Times. The New York Times, 27 June 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.
N.p., n.d. Web.
"ROE v. WADE." Roe v. Wade. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.

I got a large majority of my information from oyez.org and following links about specific cases or justices. It was all from oyez.org so I cited the whole website instead of every single link I went
to.