Everyone on the Panel is a Politician

If elections in favor of a particular party don’t indicate support of that party’s platform (The anti-tax Tea Party was a huge motivator last year, and the GOP candidates almost unanimously opposed tax increases), then what’s the point of democracy? Sure, we’d like our politicians to have entirely neutral, rational reasons for everything they do, but politics just doesn’t work that way; politicians are elected because they have a bias.
The looming failure of the SC to accomplish anything is due to the fact that, like it or not, everyone on the panel is a politician, and both sides were given equal representation on the committee. Party-line type voters tend to see compromise as “caving” on the issues, so congressmen running for re-election, especially in the increasingly common “safe” seats where the primary is the election, are more afraid of being attacked for wavering on their values than for being an obstructionist. The very nature of politics has made this result almost inevitable.