Blog Post #2 - Supreme Court

Supreme Court Analysis

After reading the History Channel article overview of the United States Supreme Court, I discovered many new aspects of its origin and jurisdiction. For example, before reading this article, I was not aware that the Chief Justice of SCOTUS is required to sit on the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institute. This was a bit of a surprise because I was under the impression that Surpreme Court Judges had a solitary duty in hearing major Supreme Court level cases.

Another surprising fact that I learned about SCOTUS involves the influence of the Chief Justice on court opinion. According to the History Channel article, when the chief justice is part of the majority opinion, they have the right to assign who will write to court's opinion. This was not something I have ever been taught in previous history or political science classes. 

My major takeaway from this research is that the Supreme Court holds a lot of power. The Supreme Court has the final say in major law changes and government decisions. In addition, it has the ability to check the actions of executive branch and legislative branch. I think that the three branch system is held in balance by the Supreme Court and their power to reject the other branches' actions if necessary.