Senatorial Courtesy Analysis

According to the textbook, there are two main ways in which one can be nominated as a Federal Judge. The first approach is termed, “Senatorial Courtesy” in which the president of the United states chooses an individual that he or she believes to be qualified to fill the position, however at this point the Senate has the position to “approve or reject” based on the same “qualification” the president used in order to nominate the individual. If the Senate decided to reject the president’s selection, “veto”, they then will use the process titled “blue slip”. With the blue slip the Senate will state their ideas and feelings towards those who are nominated, and if there is a negative comment, or if the blip-slip is not even processed, then the result …show more content…
This strategy is when the president attempts to find someone that will fill the desires of the Senate as well as “reflect the political and judicial philosophy of he or she”. Basically, the “Litmus Test” approach is focusing on “ideological purity”. As the text states, many oppose this approach since the Federal Judge is primarily being selected based off the fact that they are supporting the president’s ideals rather than the good of the district. Federal courts are given the power to declare laws and policies unconstitutional based off the idea “Judicial review”. The main push that Federal courts provide to support the idea and concept of judicial review is because of “checks and balance”, the legislative, executive, judicial branch all must be held to accountability, and there must be assurance that not one branch has power over the other. However, many people disagree weather or not the Federal courts should actually obtain such a power as …show more content…
The first approach is called “judicial restraint approach” which states that the federal courts should look into a policy and “decide cases strictly on the basis of the language of the laws and the Constitution.” However there is a second approach called “activist approach” in which the courts should look at the situation specifically and decide on that case in particular to decide whether it is constitutional or not. Some people (including myself) question whether or not who should place that much trust on the federal courts, especially if that are at times chosen based on their ideology. As stated within the text, these different approach, though them may sound conservative vs. liberal, that is not always the case. For example, a conservative judge may still use activist approach, and view the circumstance based off a general belief rather than strictly the words from the