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Can the president overturn a supreme court decision?
In this article, you’ll learn about:
Let’s dig in
No, the President cannot overturn a Supreme Court decision.
Only Congress or another Supreme Court decision can overturn a Supreme Court decision.
While the President cannot overturn a Supreme Court decision, they do make midterm nominees.
Once the US President nominates a Supreme Court associate justice, they have to get voted in.
The Senate is the legislative branch that majority votes on the president’s nominee.
Donald Trump nominated 3 Supreme Court Justices while he was in the White House.
Barack Obama nominated 2, but one got blocked by the Republicans in the Senate.
There are currently:
President Roosevelt tried to gain more influence in the Supreme Court by court packing.
This means he wanted to increase the number of associate justices.
This would have allowed him to have more “favorable rulings” from the Supreme Court decisions.
The only groups that can overturn a Supreme Court decision are:
For Congress to overturn a Supreme Court decision:
After Congress overturns a Supreme Court decision, they have to make an amendment.
The amendment has to get ratified by 3/4 of state legislatures (majority opinion).
The Chief Justice is the one who appoints the Associate Justice to write the majority opinion.
A Supreme Court decision can get overturned by:
A constitutional amendment is a formal revision or addition to the US Constitution.
These Supreme Court decisions cannot get overturned by the President of the United States.
No, the president does not have the ability to veto Supreme Court decisions.
Supreme Court decisions are not subject to review from the President.
In Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court deemed abortion rights a constitutional right.
This gave women protection of abortion rights under the 14th Amendment.
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Samuel Alito is the Supreme Court Justice who wrote the majority opinion.
This majority opinion is the one that overturned abortion rights.
Joe Biden encouraged people to get Congress to vote to overturn the Supreme Court decision.
The president cannot take any executive action to overturn the decision.
Under Barack Obama, the Supreme Court voted to allow corporations to donate to elections.
Barack Obama felt that this allowed the elections to get bankrolled by special interest parties.
He could not overturn the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
In 1805, Associate Justice Chase had impeachment brought against him.
But, the Senate overturned this decision of impeachment.
The role of the Supreme Court is:
The role of the Supreme Court is to hear appeals from decisions of lower courts.
And make decisions on how they proceed.
The main job of the Supreme Court is to:
The U.S. Supreme Court reviews cases at its own discretion.
They don’t automatically review all cases from the lower courts.
The Supreme Court justices get requests on up to 7,000 cases per year.
They typically only review 100 cases per term, which is 2 years.
Let’s sum up the powers of the Supreme Court.
They have the power of judiciary review.
This means they can declare acts of Congress or state legislatures unconstitutional.
And they can overturn the outcomes of court cases in the federal courts.
The powers of the U.S. Supreme Court are:
The Supreme Court has a duty to protect the constitutional rights of the citizens.
They will also review cases that bring into question the protections of citizens.
For example, after a major school shooting, students sued government officials.
They stated that government officials have a duty to protect citizens.
The Supreme Court ruled against this, saying that police do not have a duty to protect you.
The police’s only duty is to protect those who are in law enforcement’s custody.
The Supreme Court cannot overturn a law that’s getting created.
They can only overturn a law that’s deemed unconstitutional in a court case.
For the Supreme Court to be able to overturn a law, it has to first:
But the Supreme Court will overturn a law only if it’s deemed unconstitutional.
The Legislative Branch creates laws and passes them down to the people.
The Judicial Branch upholds laws that the people have broken.
If the laws are unconstitutional the Supreme Court can overturn them in the Judicial Branch.
But only if those court cases referencing the unconstitutional laws make it up to them.
Here are questions related to the president overturning the Supreme Court.
No, the Supreme Court does not make laws.
And they do not have any influence on the creation of laws.
All they can do is overturn a case outcome if it’s deemed unconstitutional.
Yes, the Supreme Court can get overruled by Congress.
But, for the Supreme Court to get overruled, 2/3 of Congress has to vote for the overruling.
The Supreme Court interprets the American Constitution
The Supreme Court acts as an interpreter and guardian of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court can rule that laws written by Congress are unconstitutional.
But, they cannot have any say in the creation of laws.
Once those laws get used in a lawsuit, appeals can make their way up to the Supreme Court.
In the appeals, the Supreme Court can deem that laws written by Congress are unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court justices gather on Wednesdays and Fridays to decide which cases to hear.
4 out of the 9 justices have to vote in favor of hearing the case.
Only the Supreme Court has the power to settle disputes between states.
The Constitution gives the Supreme Court the jurisdiction to settle disputes between states.
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