Our weekly program, Missouri State Journal, is a collaboration between KSMU Radio and Missouri State University. It's hosted and produced by MSU's Office of Strategic Communication, and it airs each Tuesday morning at 9:45 on KSMU.
In this episode of our local program Making Democracy Work, host Dr. Hueping Chin speaks with Dr. Dan Ponder, Drury University professor of political science and director of Drury's L.E. Meador Center.
Good morning. Our guest today is Dr. Dan Ponder, professor of political science and director of the Meador Center for Politics and Citizenship at Drury University. Our focus today is the Supreme Court. Good morning, Dan. Give us some basic information about the structure and function of the Supreme Court.
Ponder: If you look at Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the Constitution, Article 1 sets up Congress. Article 2 sets up the executive, and Article 3 sets up the court, and Article 3 is by far the shortest. There's not much more in there than somebody would put in a medium sized email, for example. All other federal courts are created by Congress, but the Supreme Court is the only one that's specifically created by the Constitution. One thing to remember is that there's no requirements to be on the court. You know, you have to be 35 and, you know, the residency requirements to be a president and so on and so forth with Congress, but there's no requirements to be on the court. No age requirements, no residency requirements other than being nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate and then they are lifetime appointments. Right now, and...since 1869, we've had nine justices. But that's not in the Constitution. That's set by statute. So there have been several conversations about increasing or decreasing the size of the court, but nothing has actually gone into effect. And very quickly, what they do is both statutory and constitutional interpretation, and their main power, which was actually not in the Constitution in the checks and balances is judicial review, which is the ability of the court to declare act of Congress or the president unconstitutional and null and void. And so that has become really a big part of it. And the other thing that I want to mention, and there's so much that can be talked about here, but, you know, they don't have to take cases. They take very few cases, and most years, there are between 7,000 and upwards of 9 or 10,000 petitions of what's called writ of certiorari to come to the Supreme Court. And in the last several years, they've taken for full argument only about 60 to 80. So really about 1% or less actually make it all the way up to the Supreme Court.
So, you mentioned the Supreme Court plays a check and balance role in our government, and as the final authority on cases related to the Constitution and federal laws, how has the court shaped and reshaped the political landscape?
Ponder: Well, it goes on. You know, it used to be, you know, Alexander Hamilton in Federalist number 78 famously said that the court is the, quote, least dangerous branch because it has neither the sword nor the purse. But over time, I think it's fair to question whether or not that's reality. You know, they have been able to set what works and doesn't work, what goes and doesn't go in the United States on race and segregation, institutional power, what powers the state has versus the federal government, what's protected speech? What rights do criminal defendants have? When can you search someone? When can government take private land for public use? And so on and so forth. And they can reshape it. A lot of times they look at stare decisis, which is precedent in looking at previous cases, but that's really informal in the United States. It's much more formalized in other countries. But that's why you hear a lot of times the Supreme Court has overturned like a previous precedent like we saw, for example, the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v Wade. And then finally, what they can do, like I said before, is they look at a lot of the nature of institutional power. And so, people have been following it. For example, US versus Trump, which was decided in 2024, greatly expanded presidential authority.
Each justice has his or her own ideology of justice. So how does that difference of their views have shaped their decisions? And then and then how would they go beyond the party line? Or is it possible?
Ponder: There's no question that 95% plus of all Supreme Court justices have shared the same party or ideological affiliation of the president that appointed them. But there are a lot. We tend to hear a lot about when it's closer. Right now, Republican appointees have a 6 to 3 advantage. And so again, they can shape it. A lot of times, you know, if you listen to oral argument, you can kind of tell which direction the justices are going to take. And I think that's had a real impact on things like polarization, you know. For example, go back to the 1960s, you know, people were winning with, you know, Warren Burger confirmed by 71 votes. O'Connor, she had 99 votes. Even Scalia is sort of a controversial figure. He was confirmed 98 to nothing. But what we've seen lately is much more closely divided. It's almost even the partisanship of putting members on the Supreme Court now is pretty much almost on the party line. So, you know, Gorsuch had a nine vote advantage. Kavanaugh only two. Justice Barrett, only four. Justice Jackson, only six. So, you can see the polarization out in the world has sort of come into the Supreme Court, even from before they're on the court. Of course, you know, with a lifetime tenure and so forth, the idea was that they were supposed to be above politics. But politics certainly does drive them, even though a lot of them say they don't. It's hard to escape that conclusion.
Yeah, it's a complicated issue. Once again, our guest has been Dr. Dan Ponder, political science professor and director of the Meador Center for Politics and Citizenship at Drury University.