Kennedy: Congress should hash out hot-button issues, not High Court

The U.S. Supreme Court has seen a dramatic increase in blockbuster cases on its docket, hearing highly politicized issues such as affirmative action, same-sex marriage, campaign finance rules, immigration and health care.

But at least one justice isn’t happy that such hot-button issues so frequently land before the court. Those are the type of things better decided by Congress, said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

“A democracy should not be dependent for its major decisions on what nine unelected people from a narrow legal background have to say,” Kennedy said after attending a library dedication in Sacramento, Calif., according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “And I think it’s of tremendous importance for our political system to show the rest of the world — and we have to show ourselves first — that democracy works because we can reach agreement on a principle basis.”