I don't see what is ignorant about Santorum's position. The lower federal courts are not even required to exist. Congress can add to or eliminate them at its discretion. The Constitution only mandates the formation of the Supreme Court. I believe the Ninth is the most overruled Circuit, and has made a name for itself as radical and extreme. The judges on the Ninth however are Article Three judges with lifetime appointments. Their compensation cannot be reduced during their service. So, the Circuit could be disbanded and its workload distributed to other Circuits, but we would still have to pay the currrent judges.
" I believe the Ninth is the most overruled Circuit, and has made a name for itself as radical and extreme." So your opinion differs from their legal opinions, and that makes them radical and extreme... Laughable, really.
Thats not what he was saying at all, if their rulings are being overruled more than anyone else, then it means they make radical rulings. It has nothing to do with his opinion, it has to do with the supreme courts opinion.
Logically false. Because one ruling is overturned by a higher court doesn't make the previous ruling radical. These are all just opinions, not to be confused with eternal truths or some private knowledge of what the words of the Constitution actually were intended to mean in the future. The Supreme Court's opinion changes, when the justices change, which is evidence that opinions are changing over time. Where the right wing suggests some fundamentalist truth that they represent, the only truth is that as society changes and as people change, and as knowledge and technology change...so do opinions. The system is mutable, not static. Radical is in the eye of the beholder.
The rulings are still radical in the eyes of the court. If one court has none of its rulings overturned, and the other one has half of its rulings overturned, which one is more radical?
The founding fathers were radical in the eyes of King George. When it comes to law that is mutable and subject to opinion and political influence, radical is a meaningless world that can fall to either left or right depending on the point of view of the person who is overturning a lower court opinion. Opinions can be overturned not because they were/are radical, but on legal grounds that do not address the actual issues, but rather the principles of the legal process. Judges often overturn rulings they actually agree with on principle, but reject as a matter of law and legal process.
For your information 777 lower courts are supposed follow precedent not make new law. The highest court can make the new law if they wish to be activist. If a lower court is doing its job, and ruling in line with precedent it allows the higher court to take on more important cases.
Saying that "radical" is in the eyes of the beholder is a stupid argument. Im sure that if you had some fundamentalist muslim guy who lopped off his wifes head, and he was charged with first degree murder by the courts, that he would think the ruling was radical because he believes in sharia law. The law is the law, and we appoint people to make rulings based on law, thus if one court is getting overturned at a higher frequency then most courts they are making rulings which do not properly represent the law, and therefore they are making radical rulings. Do i like every every decision that the supreme court makes? No, but they are the barometer for what is and isnt radical in the eyes of the law. So if they are overruling a disproportionate number of rulings then it is because that court is not acting within the bounds of the law. ' Im not going to continue this debate with you, because you are just going down your troll path right now to create arguments with no common sense whatsoever.
Where is it written, what you just said... Rejecting a law passed by some state legislature as unconstitutional to the state, is making a new law? I don't agree. Nothing forces a higher court to take on any case, does it? Legislatures make laws, executive branch executes (or uses executive privilege to make laws) and courts offer up opinions as to the constitutionality of the laws generated by legislatures and executive branch. We have a process of checks and balances, nothing wrong with that. Is it the most efficient system? Not even close, but a totalitarian system is the most efficient...I don't think that's what we really want.