Originally Posted by SteveZ

The Supreme Court is not as fluid an operation as many would be led to believe. It really deals in only one subject - Constitutional Law. Everything else just flows as subsets of it. While the jurists who staff it may have personal leanings, they have demonstrated a propensity to view the law independent of their personalities. That's what makes them good jurists and why no matter who replaces whom, SCOTUS will still be SCOTUS.

Laws passed are meaningless unless four things happen: 1) Congress gives the Executive Branch the funding to enforce them; 2) the Executive Branch actually enforces them; 3) If Constitutionality is challenged, the Supreme Court rules for-or-against; and 4) Congress fulfills is oversight responsibilities with vigor.

Congress - at least the greatest majority of seat-holders - have proven themselves to be lumps of inorganic material when it comes to accomplishing anything. A 10% approval rate for a group of people with an average incumbency of over 16 years! With records like that, the lot of them would have been fired from any business a long time before accruing that sort of longevity. Yet, they keep on a'chugging along....

A new President is not going to make the next Congress "better perform" than its current dismal rating. The Congress[wo]men are still basically the same human beings who flunked out this past term. If after 10-20-30 years they can't work together any better, having a new guy in the "other branch" of government won't affect Congress. It is still its own animal, and diseased with too-long-a-tenure.