Yes, there is a reason for it.
The confirmation of the Federal judges is conducted by the Senate, which is meant to be a way to gauge both
- the judges' ability to understand and interpret the law (their professional qualifications) and
- their personal preferences, in order to see what their judgement would end up being when there are multiple countervailing considerations, which make it possible for decisions to go either way.
Both of these have now been effectively removed.
The 1st one has been replaced by (a) professional legal organizations making recommendations and by (b) judges' past judicial history. So this power has now been effectively delegated to other institutions (such as the American Bar Association).
The 2nd one, however, is much more problematic.
During the confirmations, the judges can no longer answer any hypothetical question about any hypothetical cases because of the judges' code of ethics. The reason behind it is that every case has its own nuances which make it different from every other case and judges are not supposed give hints on how they may rule based on some personal principles because it may unfairly effect potential litigants decision to press their case in court.
However, when the judges are being confirmed, they usually do get asked such questions, and they inevitably refuse to answer them because of their code of ethics. When it comes to famous cases, such as Roe v Wade, they re-assure everyone that they would not destroy the current legal regime by saying that "Roe v Wade is an established law." Until this court, there was no real reason to counter-argue that SCOTUS had the power to overturn such "established law." But SCOTUS didn't have a practice of doing so.
On a rare occasion this can result in a judge who rules the opposite of what everyone would expect. Souter, for example, was appointed by George HW Bush(R), but became known as a consistently left-leaning judge. Roberts was appointed by George W Bush(R), but has also made some calls heavily unliked by the Republicans (the Obamacare is probably the most famous such Roberts decision).
This lack of ability to exclude judges based on their possible personal preferences was less of a problem until recently.
What made it worse was the removal of cloture rule with regard to the confirmations of SCOTUS judges. As long as the filibuster rule was in place (and confirmations required 60 out of 100 votes), the nominated judges had to be palatable to both sides of the isle. So, in fact, judges were confirmed by much wider margins.
The last 4 judges were confirmed with margins less than 60 out of 100. And 3 of them, made these recent decisions possible.
So, how can this be fixed? Well, actually quite easily. Senate, as one of the 2 chambers of Congress has the power to establish its own rules. The rules would not likely fall within the power of review of any court because the Constitution gives the Senate such power in a very clear language. The Senate can create a rule suspending any judicial code of ethics during confirmation hearings if they interfere with the Senate's ability to evaluate the nominees. This would be a very reasonable rule. And it would take away the judges' ability to dodge questions about which precedent they would be willing to overturn.
It would also bind the judges to their answers. Should they ever overturn a case which they have promised not to, it would create a clear case for their impeachment. Such a case would not be clear now because they didn't technically lie. They had a legal way to dodge those questions. Technically, the judges can be charged with perjury, but such a case would likely not get anywhere. However, if they were forced to answer the questions and were held responsible for their answers, it would be much more likely that they would face some consequences for misleading the Senate during their confirmations.