Thanks AL... I stand corrected from my recollection of 9th grade civics class.

Good question. Dunno!!

Why do I always have to give the long replies? Can't I be like Nancy and just say no once in a while?

OK, the formal system of checks and balances is insufficient to limit the Court. For all intents and purposes, once you are on the Court there is only one - impeachment. When was a S. Ct. justice last impeached?

The main restraints on the Supreme Court are informal. One is the self-imposed restraint, seen in Newdow and Padilla, to avoid interpreting the Constitution when a controversy can be addressed by a method with less gravity such as standing or statutory interpretation. But this depends entirely on the self-restraint of the Justices. Another is caseload. The Supreme Court can only hear so many cases a term, and since it has original jurisdiction over certain classes of controversies, it must hear those cases, or not at all. So, many cases from the circuits never get to the Show. Cert denied.

Possible formal changes to the system? End life tenure. Limit the original jurisdiction of inferior courts. Amend the Constitution to remove the Court's jurisdiction over Constitutional cases and have two Supreme Courts - one to hear cases and controversies among states, etc. (those categories in Art. III that don't involve issues, but parties) and one to serve as an advisory body to the Congress and President on Constitutional matters. Each has its pluses and minuses, but I leave it to you all to flesh these out, or make your own proposals. I have an M&A to close.

They do interpret the laws. However, I think the issue is that the legal precedents they set often make them very close to being a law-making body in and of themselves. They don't have near the kind of accountability to the American public that the actual law-makers have.

If that's the case then the fault lies with Congress. For all the lawyers Congress has, you'd think that they would do their own vetting of a new law against the Constitution.

I usually sit in the middle politically. I really haven't seen all that many judgements, or whatever they're called, that were out of line once you threw out the politics of the situation and looked at it from a neutral point of view. Sure there's been a few questionable calls and if I was a political animal I can see where I'd be pissed about them, but the Constitution isn't about "me", it's about the United States and it's future.

IMO, of course.