Revision & Exam Practice for the “legacy” A Level qualifications including:

• Edexcel (Unit 3C – Representative Processes in the USA, Unit 4C – Governing the USA)
• AQA (Unit 3A – The Politics of the USA, Unit 4A – The Government of the USA)
• OCR (F855 – US Government & Politics)

REVISE THE US SUPREME COURT

How to use these questions for revision and exam practice:

1. For short-answer questions, write a 3 paragraph response using the PEEACH paragraph structure (P=point, E=evidence, E=explain, A=argument, C=counter argument, H=how does this answer the question?)
2. Once you have completed your question, read the indicative content and the mark scheme.
3. Complete the “Make It Better” (MIB) Task:
   1. Highlight the parts of the indicative content your were able to fully explain and exemplify in green.
   2. Highlight the parts of the indicative content you partially explained and/or exemplified in yellow.
   3. Highlight the parts of the indicative content which you did not include in red.
4. Using the mark scheme, award yourself a level and a mark – compare this to your target grade – are you on track to achieve this in the examination?
5. There is also a space for you to add additional notes and/or examples that don’t appear in the indicative content, or add better explanations, or include additional, points from the indicative content.

Why has the process for the appointment of Supreme Court Justices been criticised?  (15)

Indicative Content

The appointment process of Supreme Court justices has been criticised for the following reasons:

• role of the president – the power to nominate a like-minded justice potentially gives the president the power to influence court decisions and thus public policy for years after he leaves office; there has been recent evidence of the president using the nomination process to influence the social balance of the court, or for electoral advantage
• role of the Senate – Senate votes are increasingly along party lines as the liberal-conservative divide on the court has deepened; some Senate hearings, notably those of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, have been preoccupied with the personality and public persona of the nominee as much as their judicial ability
• involvement of interest groups – the Senate has become the subject of intense lobbying by conservative and liberal interest groups which run ad campaigns similar to those for candidates for elected ofice
• futile – particularly after the rejection of Robert Bork, nominees have spoken almost exclusively in generalities and declined to comment on any issue which can be claimed to be potentially the subject of a future case