The Supreme Court

    My most important take away after watching these videos is that the Supreme court remains the most powerful governing body today. The decisions of the Supreme Court tell the President, Congress, and the states what they may or may not do: The decisions of these nine justices become the law of the land. Something I learned from these videos is The Supreme Court receives about 100 cases a week and 7,000 cases a year but they only agree to hear about 100 cases a year. 

    One thing that I learned surprised me: After hearing a case, all nine judges sit in a room and share their opinions, but one justice writes the opinion of the majority. This takes more time than anything else and revisions may go on for months.  All opinions and decisions are announced at the end of the term in Late June. I knew the Supreme Court was important but these videos really educated me on how the rulings of the Supreme Court can impact our everyday lives. 

My own grandfather was lucky enough to be 1 of those 100 cases in the 1980's. FCC (Federal Communications Commission) V. WNCN Listeners Guild asked the Supreme Court to decide if a group of citizens could stop a radio station from changing its format from classical to rock music. This case came before the Court when they granted certiorari to the US court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In this case, the Court ruled that the Listeners could not prevent the change in format because that would violate the First Amendment rights of the owners of the radio station. One of those owners was my grandfather.