History of the Supreme Court

     To be completely honest, as a 20 year old new voter who aspires to one day become a lawyer I am not competent in the Supreme Court as much as I should be. I am actually currently taking my first ever American Politics class at the same time as this Media Law & Literacy course, so I have already accumulated more knowledge within the past couple of weeks. This article on the Supreme Court taught me the first supreme court was composed of six justices, fluctuating until 1869, when Congress set the number of seats to nine, where it has remained until today. Something that stood out to me is the Supreme Court as of today, has held a wealth of important cases, which have had lasting impacts on our nation for better or worse.  I think the most important take-away about the Supreme Court is that it has the ultimate jurisdiction over all laws within the US and is responsible for assessing the constitutionality of those laws. Because of checks and balances, the court has the ability to check the actions of the other two branches- the Executive and the Legislative to make sure neither is abusing their power. The most surprising thing that I learned from this article is that when the first Supreme Court was constructed, Justices were nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed or denied by the Senate. The first Court had Robert Harrison who actually declined to serve and was replaced by James Iredell. Another thing that came as new information to me is that as of June 2022, 115 Justices have served on the Supreme Court.