Planning 'Supreme Court - is it problematic to have an unelected body have so much power?'

• no - subjected by checks from congress and president
• yes - Roe vs. Wade (1973), court declared women had the constitutional right for abortion, case of Baker vs. Carr (1962) illustrated ability of court to interpret constitutional principles broadly
• yes - gerrymandering - where it opposes fifteenth amendment of voting equal rights, term denies this by disadvantageous, artificial creation of electoral boundaries = therefore, due to liberal interpretation of constitution supreme court established new political principle 

"the court has systematically done its best to undermine everything they care about for the past 40 years" - Larry Kramer, constitutional historian - 

The Supreme Court’s Power Has Become Excessive, The New York Times

 Do same-sex couples think they had no rights before the Supreme Court spoke, and have rights after only because five justices said so? 

fundamental law of the land, made by “We, the People,” depends on the ideologically driven whims of five lawyers? 

There is a place for judicial review in constitutional democracy, just not for judicial supremacy.

 idea that the justices have final say over the meaning of our Constitution — that once they have spoken, no matter what they say, our only recourse is the nearly impossible task of amending the Constitution or waiting for some of them to change their minds or die or retire — ought to offend anyone who believes in democratic government.

 myth: that the court needs this overweening power to protect minorities. Yes, the court has occasionally done so, but much more often it has done the opposite. Time and time again, we have seen it take political movements and legislation to get rights and make them secure. Virtually no progress was made on race, after all, until Congress enacted the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 — laws the Supreme Court has been working hard for years to weaken and destroy. That the people who wrote and ratified our Constitution wanted or expected the court to have such power is a fairy tale. They emphatically did not fight a revolution to replace a monarchy with an oligarchy.