‘Constitutionally separate but not outside the political battle.’ Evaluate this description of the role of the US Supreme Court.

This is a 30 mark question so there will need to be extensive argumentation on both sides of the debate. Examples of paragraphs in terms of how the court is not outside the political sphere should include: the politicisation of the nomination process with recent examples such as nominee Garland, the impact of the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision and how these seemed to be a violation of political neutrality, recent instances of judicial activism that appeared to run against the will of Congress, the range of seemingly political issues that the court decides on. You can structure your essay for and against or with one paragraph for and one paragraph against - this is better as it will showcase a continual evaluation of the previous argument. In terms of why the court isn't separate, one may look at the principle of textual originalism to try to explain that decisions aren't made on the basis of political preferences. However, often this can be just a cloak for political decisions. There is also academic literature on the fact that the court usually decides on small issues - big political issues are rare. You could also analyse how cases arrive at the court - they don't get to pick who appeals, but they choose about 5% of all cases from the lower courts - how does this fit into politicisation? For help with A-level politics, please get in touch.