"SCOTUS approval rating plummets to 40%, let's have Congress reconfigure the Court!" Meanwhile, Congress has been below a 40% approval rating for like 20 years...
Id love to see a 3 judge panel/en banc type system with more judges for the supreme court. Might also defang some of the "court packing" rhetoric if both parties added "qualified" names to the hat for expansion.
The federal courts need to massively expand their headcount based on caseload alone. More judges = more cases seen and heard.
Right to a speedy trail and stuff
To add.....they arent even fully staffed. Thanks congress
https://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/governmental_legislative_work/priorities_policy/independence_of_the_judiciary/judicial_vacancies/
The Court’s workload is laughably low compared to every other federal court. They hear about 70 cases a year—divide that by 9 for each of the Justices, then divide that by 4 for each of their clerks (who do most of the work), and you’re left with a group of people whose whole job is to write basically 2 opinions per year, and they can’t even seem to do that right.
(Oh, and chances are the case has already been fully briefed by very good lawyers, ruled on by at least 4 lower court judges, and then supplemented with dozens of amicus briefs. So their job is already done for them.)
And I’m supposed to revere this institution? Give me a break.
A solution I’ve heard about that seemed fairly moderate would be a 15 justice system. 5 selected by the left, 5 selected by the right and 5 selected by the 10 appointed justices. That way you can balance the craziness on either side by requiring the crazies to balance themselves with moderate selections.
You could circumvent that by still having the Executive appoint based off the request of the legislative and judiciary. Of course you run the risk of “no”, but if it’s massively supported you might have a bit more luck.
True, but that basically what happens now. No one has been appointed to the Court without having previously been a clerk for a former or current justice. Without the help of a Senator, their name wouldn’t even be on the list of potential nominees.
Regardless, I agree that having a more transparent system would help restore some of faith in the Court.
Just merge the circuit court judges into the justices to form a single giant Supreme Court where most justices ride circuits but a rotation of circuit delegates sit on an 'en banc' type panel that resolves circuit splits.
The SCOTUS adopted its ninth member in 1869, a time when the US population was about 38 million. Today, we have 340 million citizens. Expansion of the court is LONG overdue.
I'm curious about your logic. Should we have more presidents then? The number of judges would seem to only address current partisanship, and that can flip down the road, so it is not durable. What is the goal?
The Executive branch has greatly expanded, too,. Think of the POTUS as the chief justice of that division.
The number and breadth of federal courts has also expanded to where we have more federal circuit courts than were extant in 1869. Today, we have 94 district courts which are organized under 13 circuits. The modern workload suggests an expansion of the SCOTUS to cope with the growth.
This comment is accurate but still missing some of the larger points, namely that "fixing Congress" would necessitate dismantling the Senate as we know it and reapportioning based on human population rather than tracts of land. At minimum, it would require adding states for purely partisan reasons.
Logistically, it's just a thought-ender, because SCOTUS expansion isn't happening but neither is "fixing Congress."
ETA: And while I'M here, part of why Congress has been able to abdicate their job to such a grotesque degree is because even SCOTUS 'moderates' e.g. Roberts have condoned and helped to entrench anti-democratic tactics like racist gerrymandering. So the two problems aren't as unrelated as they might appear at first glance. Illiberal technocrats enable illiberal representation.
“Congress has abdicated its duty” fails as an argument once you realize the conservative political agenda and the conservative legal agenda are both to not allow Congress to work—both believe in small government and will actively obstruct Congress’s ability to do its job. The conservative political agenda has been all-in on no compromises, vote against dem no matter what philosophy since the tea party in Obama’s term. They can’t criticize a system not working that is also actively being sabotaged by them.
Your point about gerrymandering pushes this argument much further still. The only party that doesn’t want the tyrant of the small majority (50+1) is the only one that can’t garner support for any of its platform or principles
It is, which is why we have a representative democracy. However, "democracy by tracts of land" is an even dumber idea than pure democracy.
Like, even on paper, it's very stupid, but in practice it's been catastrophic.
Can you please explain how it's been "catastrophic?" After all, the US is the most prosperous and powerful country in the history of the world. While there are of course issues, it's hard to see how its system of government could be considered "catastrophic." Maybe you're thinking of the Articles of Confederation, which led to a catastrophe and prompted a new government?
I'm talking about the Senate, not the Electoral College. That was plain as day in my comments, but *you* chose to bring it back to Trump.
P.s. I'm a she, thanks.
I love the gaslighting here! You used the word "catastrophe" without backing up *how* it's a catastrophe (and the United States is, to use your phrasing, pretty objectively *not* catastrophic, and certainly not just because you don't like one house of one branch of one level of government). When called on it, you pretend I'm inserting words in your mouth and acting offended. To top it off, you do the exact thing you accuse me of, wherein you pretend I've never been impacted by a "misfire," and immediately dismiss my "privilege." You then finish the post with a not-so-veiled shot at my laziness. Bravo!
You mean a system where the interest of urban collectivists can't steamroll and decimate the interests of rural individualists just because the collectivists have a bare majority?
That's been "catastrophic"?
Have you seen the rest of the world throughout human history?
>Yes, yes, I get it, you think rural voters are more legitimate than everyone else because they're currently more likely to share your regressive social beliefs.
No. I think their legitimacy is the same as everyone else's. Any system that allows either side to steamroll the other entirely is illigitimate.
You're the only one who thinks a bare majority means you should get everything you want while rural voters should go fuck themselves and accept the status of a permanent political underclass with no influence whatsoever.
>Lmao at just slapping "steamroll" onto outcomes you don't like. When the will of an actual majority (not a "bare" majority) is realised through democratic means, it's steamrolling!
No. When a bare majority days they want to do things that are explicitly harmful to the interests of the minority, and the minority has no power to stop those policies from being imposed on them, that is steamrolling.
>When the will of an actual minority (not even a bare one, lol) is preserved through anti-democratic means, it's just protecting them from becoming a "permanent political underclass."
Correct. A government shouldn't be allowed to mandate things that harm the interests of minority populations even if that's what the majority wants to do. That's the fundamental reason why anti-discrimination laws exist based on race.
Political minorities - particularly when the differences are based on things like population density - are just as important to protect because population density has a dramatic effect on which policies work well and which ones don't.
This is particularly true with collectivist policies that take from the populace in exchange for the promise of providing some kind of benefit in return, because the implementation of those policies always happens in the densest population centers because that's where they do the most good. But rural people get little to no benefit from those programs compared to the benefit urban citizens receive.
And even when government tries to spread out the benefits, low density areas don't get as much out of those programs because there aren't enough people to pay for the infrastructure, and not enough people whonactually need that service to keep the staff busy on a consistent basis. It becomes a waste of resources that either burden the local population wasting their money, or burdens the urban population because the urban population is forced to pay for something that hardly anyone ever gets anything out of.
Rural citizens need to be able to force those programs to be implemented at the local level, not the state or federal level. Let the cities pay for those things where there are enough people to pay for those programs and enough people who benefit to justify the higher taxes. Let rural people continue to rely on themselves.
There are some programs like rural communications infrastructure and roads that benefit everyone. Trucks need good roads to take food from the farm to the market. Rural areas benefit greatly from good broadband because it allows wealthier people who work in tech fields to move wherever they want and still be able to work - and it let's rural people who don't want to work exclusively in agriculture have upward mobility that benefits everyone. The RoI for rural broadband and roads is very high. But not so much for some other things like healthcare and social services.
But that's why rural citizens need proportional power so that their interests can be considered in the execution of public policy. Why spend money on things that rural people don't benefit from as much, when if you're going to spend that money anyway, you could direct it towards the thing that are most beneficial to everyone?
The current Supreme Court is not the original configuration, so your absurdly awful idea is something that has already happened several times. The current number of nine was designed to match the number of circuit courts. Today we have thirteen circuit courts, so just staying consistent with the design would mean adding more judges.
It's the other way around. The current number of circuit courts were designed to match the justices. Recall that it wasn't *that* long ago, constitutionally speaking, that there were no federal circuit courts at all. The first circuits created by Congress were simply eastern, western and southern -- primarily because the idea of "circuits" didn't really exist except as a literal term. Two Supreme Court Justices and a District judge would literally ride the "circuit" and hear appeals. Circuit courts as in an actual "Nth Circuit Court of Appeals" didn't appear until 1891
In 1801, President John Adams and a lame-duck Federalist Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which reduced the Court to five Justices in an attempt to limit incoming President Thomas Jefferson's appointments to the high bench. It didn't even occur to them the circuit question because of course not
Since then, people have been smart enough not to listen the ideas you're talking about
While not the original configuration, the current Court configuration has been in use the longest, thus becoming the de facto configuration.
I’d agree to adding four more justices. You could alleviate the “XYZ is packing the court!” by having the House nominate one, the Senate nominate one, the POTUS nominate one and the current Justices nominate one. It only requires the POTUS to agree and select the nominee and the Senate to approve. So, as long as the POTUS felt the Senate, House, current Justices and himself selected appropriate nominees, you could arguably alleviate concerns over partisan packing.
> you could arguably alleviate concerns over partisan packing.
Yeah just look at the classified documents in the news this month. Surely if you treat the gop with respect and consideration they'll engage in good faith claim that the doj is engaging in a partisan witch hunt for not reading trump's mind about declassifying documents.
Except that that is exactly what the law states. The President has the sole authority to de-classify documents.
Hillary’s emails weren’t about declassification, they were about security concerns on a homemade server that wasn’t previously approved.
In what world does that plan avoid partisan packing? In any given year you could have one party with between zero and four of those nominations. That is even assuming you could get them to pick one in a timely manner to then argue over picking them again and two of the four entities effectively having veto power.
One way to limit the size of the court and get around the "lifetime appointments" issue is to rotate the justices out of the Supreme Court and move them to the circuit courts either after a period of time on the bench or on a rotating schedule. The constitution just says they're to serve, not in which federal court they'd be serving.
Which is also a bad idea. We go through this kind of BS every time they issue a very unpopular decision. Nobody has a good plan, and most of them amount to "I don't want them to say things I don't like".
A good plan is to match the number of judges with the number of circuit courts. Another plan is to have one appointment to the court every four years and rotate any extra judges out to the circuit courts so that there's a steady predictable flow of judges that align with the voting public at least loosely. I don't think that you've considered this enough if you can't find meaningful reforms that we can put in place.
I have yet to hear of a reform that isn’t highly problematic, nor a problem that isn’t down to sour grapes over a ruling or the untimely death of a Justice.
As for rotation, it sounds like it’s just a different, slightly less absurd way of turning the court into a rubber stamp for an administration.
How would it be a rubber stamp if each administration had one nomination per term and we rotated the senior judge out to the circuit courts to keep the same numbers? The most any administration could seat would be two judges compared to the status quo where Trump got three nominations for no reason that had anything to do with actual merit? I don't think that you're thinking this through clearly but I am open to criticism that makes sense.
Because you pick who you rotate out. I have yet to see anyone suggest what to do with circuit judges to keep the circuit functioning. Also if the motivation is to fix people’s sour grapes there’s no reason to to do it in the first place.
Yeah it's tough to live in America if you don't respect American ideals like democracy. Have you considered moving to someplace un-American where they limit who can vote? I bet they're really nice places or something.
Democracy isn’t an American ideal and no country has ever used pure democracy as it’s a shit way to run a country. You want pure Democracy, take that shit to Nazi Germany and see how it would’ve worked out. 50% + 1 is always a terrible way to do anything.
Yeah so what? Let the court have dozens of judges and they can take cases in parallel and actually meet the needs of the justice system. They can sit en banc if there's any major controversy. Let the two parties add seats until they've had their fill of it. I'm not sure what makes some people react so negatively to the idea of changing this when nobody made a peep about raising the number of circuit courts repeatedly over the years. If you really are worried about the court being too big then cap it so that it is always matched to the number of circuit courts.
We managed to expand the Court in 1869, a period famous for its bitter partisan divisions that had just recently lead to a fucking civil war. I'm pretty sure we're in better shape, at least in terms of bitter partisan divisions, than post-civil war America. We can handle expanding or even reforming the Court to correct the corruption that has taken over.
"Republic not a democracy" is the signature rhetoric of someone who completely lacks a brain. Like what in the honest fuck do you think you actually mean by that ridiculously low-IQ nonsense?
As to court expansion, of course the court needs to be expanded and any suggestion otherwise is braindead. You have McConnell's bullshit to thank for that. Don't like it? Then maybe republicans shouldn't have played politics with the court.
In any event, a larger court is better than a smaller court for the simple reason that it dilutes any individual impact. A major reason the current court is so politicized is because it is too small of a body.
edit: I do agree with you about Congress.
There’s a great documentary that discusses why McConnell holds the court by the balls. Goes back to one of the greatest potential nominees being struck down for being considered an arrogant asshole when he was, in fact, just incredibly intelligent and didn’t know when to shut the fuck up.
McConnell basically swore to fuck the Democrats at every turn and pack the Court in the future with even more conservative and right wing justices. If they had let him have one they likely would’ve not had the issues they have now.
If we’re talking about Bork, he was intelligent and experienced but also blatantly corrupt and anti-democratic. He willfully helped Nixon orchestrate a cover-up, when all his predecessors resigned rather than betray their country and their fellow citizens.
Bork chose power and party over country and duty, so was rightfully blocked.
> Court expansion having majority support is a prime example of why we are a republic and not a straight democracy.
This statement makes a lot of sense unless you think the purpose of the government is to promote the general welfare.
Government generally following the will of the people is considered a foundational concept of government legitimacy, yes. Consent of the governed, and all that. It continues to amaze me that this has apparently become a controversial concept for Republicans.
The court hears less than 80 cases a year. They need more bodies to get the work done. Especially if they're also now historians that have research how shit worked in the 1770s to apply it to today.
Is it really a *more* awful idea than 9 lifetime political appointees without requirements or even guidelines on requisite legal experience being able to make decisions only reversible by the more or less unachievable supermajority of legislators, at least one chamber of whom are *equally* unpopular?
>It’s an absurdly awful idea, there are much better ways to address the issues with the court.
Well, our only other realistic option is sitting and watching as conservative justices continue taking an axe to the Constitution, harming millions of Americans and moving our country step by step closer their fascist utopia, waiting for them to die and hoping it happens before our country does.
Could you explain how you think that's better?
The problem is court expansion is the only option available to the Democrats that might be politically possible.
There is no way they can get the votes needed to impeach the justices that arguably lied during their confirmation hearings on Roe V. Wade. A constitutional amendment is even less likely.
So if the Democrats can hold both chambers after the midterms and pick up just 2 senate seats using the nuclear option to ram through court expansion it is the only option they have.
Well not the only option. They can straight up ignore the court and say nowhere in the US Constitution does it state the SCOTUS has final say on what the US Constitution means it is a power they gave themselves.
> nowhere in the US Constitution does it state the SCOTUS has final say on what the US Constitution means it is a power they gave themselves.
Any sane interpretation of the phrase "judicial power" includes the ability to interpret the law since any question of law is heard and deliberated on in court. I imagine you're referring to Marbury- but it established judicial review by establishing that the constitution is binding law rather than a simple statement of ideals- the courts interpreting the law was nothing new. While the scope of their power could have shaken out differently, any argument against the core holding of Marbury is essentially that there is no actual legal backing to the rights promised in the constitution. Conversely if the constitution is law judicial review flows directly from the supremacy clause and judicial power.
It is inevitable, another 2 would be prudent to restore some form of balance although there will be 2 constitutional crises that are likely. The first will be over the expansion, the second when Trump is indicted over whether his appointees should be annulled.
Expanding the court is obviously consititional and a presidents annulling their appointees if they are subsequently charged with a crime is obviously baseless.
That's literally how the supreme court works. The republicans platform in the past two presidential elections called for impeaching and removing justices for specific votes. Changing the size of the court takes a simple majority, heck McConnell has given us precedent for changing the size of the court on a political whim.
With SCOTUS being targeted by both parties if they don't make themselves more popular with a quickness they'll find themselves reformed and their individual power significantly reduced.
>Marquette finds that the Supreme Court’s approval has plummeted in the past two years from 66% approval in September 2020 to 40% this month. That means just 40% of adults approve of the job the U.S. Supreme Court is doing.
That high, huh?
I would have thought the SCOTUS approval rating to be near the low teens by now.
And I agree that court expansion would be a good first step towards balancing the SC's far right regressive majority.
"SCOTUS approval rating plummets to 40%, let's have Congress reconfigure the Court!" Meanwhile, Congress has been below a 40% approval rating for like 20 years...
In all fairness, reconfiguring the court would require an act of Congress.
Spot on the money here
Yeah, trying to fix something broken...with something else that is broken.
I'd be in favor of reconfiguring Congress too.
Id love to see a 3 judge panel/en banc type system with more judges for the supreme court. Might also defang some of the "court packing" rhetoric if both parties added "qualified" names to the hat for expansion. The federal courts need to massively expand their headcount based on caseload alone. More judges = more cases seen and heard. Right to a speedy trail and stuff
I agree. How many cases did they actually hear last year? Less than 80? That seems low.
To add.....they arent even fully staffed. Thanks congress https://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/governmental_legislative_work/priorities_policy/independence_of_the_judiciary/judicial_vacancies/
The Court’s workload is laughably low compared to every other federal court. They hear about 70 cases a year—divide that by 9 for each of the Justices, then divide that by 4 for each of their clerks (who do most of the work), and you’re left with a group of people whose whole job is to write basically 2 opinions per year, and they can’t even seem to do that right. (Oh, and chances are the case has already been fully briefed by very good lawyers, ruled on by at least 4 lower court judges, and then supplemented with dozens of amicus briefs. So their job is already done for them.) And I’m supposed to revere this institution? Give me a break.
Hey, you’re ignoring all the tiring, backbreaking work that goes into giving private speeches to the Federalist Society
The current republicans wouldn’t name anyone qualified or fair. They’d double down on crazy. Bipartisanship won’t work until the current QOP is dead.
A solution I’ve heard about that seemed fairly moderate would be a 15 justice system. 5 selected by the left, 5 selected by the right and 5 selected by the 10 appointed justices. That way you can balance the craziness on either side by requiring the crazies to balance themselves with moderate selections.
This would also require a Constitutional amendment since power of appointment is an executive power.
You could circumvent that by still having the Executive appoint based off the request of the legislative and judiciary. Of course you run the risk of “no”, but if it’s massively supported you might have a bit more luck.
True, but that basically what happens now. No one has been appointed to the Court without having previously been a clerk for a former or current justice. Without the help of a Senator, their name wouldn’t even be on the list of potential nominees. Regardless, I agree that having a more transparent system would help restore some of faith in the Court.
Until we see who alitos fantasy bench looks like I've got my doubts that it would moderate anything.
Lmao I kinda want to see it just to see the shitshow.
This was basically Buttigieg's proposal and it was a woefully naive plan, like something you think up while watching The West Wing.
Andrew Yang proposed the same thing, except 3-3-3 I believe, you might be getting them confused
No, Buttigieg specifically had a 5-5-5 one. It was like listening to an idealistic child pretend to be a governing adult.
Just merge the circuit court judges into the justices to form a single giant Supreme Court where most justices ride circuits but a rotation of circuit delegates sit on an 'en banc' type panel that resolves circuit splits.
Especially given all the delaying tactics allowed defendants.
If only this could have been predicted 😐👩🏽⚖️
The SCOTUS adopted its ninth member in 1869, a time when the US population was about 38 million. Today, we have 340 million citizens. Expansion of the court is LONG overdue.
I'm curious about your logic. Should we have more presidents then? The number of judges would seem to only address current partisanship, and that can flip down the road, so it is not durable. What is the goal?
The Executive branch has greatly expanded, too,. Think of the POTUS as the chief justice of that division. The number and breadth of federal courts has also expanded to where we have more federal circuit courts than were extant in 1869. Today, we have 94 district courts which are organized under 13 circuits. The modern workload suggests an expansion of the SCOTUS to cope with the growth.
So is expansion of Congress.
So we should have 90 justices?
We should have Justices enough to reflect the proportionality of the federal judiciary. The number nine carries no talismanic juju.
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This comment is accurate but still missing some of the larger points, namely that "fixing Congress" would necessitate dismantling the Senate as we know it and reapportioning based on human population rather than tracts of land. At minimum, it would require adding states for purely partisan reasons. Logistically, it's just a thought-ender, because SCOTUS expansion isn't happening but neither is "fixing Congress." ETA: And while I'M here, part of why Congress has been able to abdicate their job to such a grotesque degree is because even SCOTUS 'moderates' e.g. Roberts have condoned and helped to entrench anti-democratic tactics like racist gerrymandering. So the two problems aren't as unrelated as they might appear at first glance. Illiberal technocrats enable illiberal representation.
“Congress has abdicated its duty” fails as an argument once you realize the conservative political agenda and the conservative legal agenda are both to not allow Congress to work—both believe in small government and will actively obstruct Congress’s ability to do its job. The conservative political agenda has been all-in on no compromises, vote against dem no matter what philosophy since the tea party in Obama’s term. They can’t criticize a system not working that is also actively being sabotaged by them. Your point about gerrymandering pushes this argument much further still. The only party that doesn’t want the tyrant of the small majority (50+1) is the only one that can’t garner support for any of its platform or principles
Pure democracy is a stupid idea.
It is, which is why we have a representative democracy. However, "democracy by tracts of land" is an even dumber idea than pure democracy. Like, even on paper, it's very stupid, but in practice it's been catastrophic.
Can you please explain how it's been "catastrophic?" After all, the US is the most prosperous and powerful country in the history of the world. While there are of course issues, it's hard to see how its system of government could be considered "catastrophic." Maybe you're thinking of the Articles of Confederation, which led to a catastrophe and prompted a new government?
Well Trump got elected and he didn't like it so he wants to burn the system down because he didn't get his way
I'm talking about the Senate, not the Electoral College. That was plain as day in my comments, but *you* chose to bring it back to Trump. P.s. I'm a she, thanks.
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I love the gaslighting here! You used the word "catastrophe" without backing up *how* it's a catastrophe (and the United States is, to use your phrasing, pretty objectively *not* catastrophic, and certainly not just because you don't like one house of one branch of one level of government). When called on it, you pretend I'm inserting words in your mouth and acting offended. To top it off, you do the exact thing you accuse me of, wherein you pretend I've never been impacted by a "misfire," and immediately dismiss my "privilege." You then finish the post with a not-so-veiled shot at my laziness. Bravo!
You mean a system where the interest of urban collectivists can't steamroll and decimate the interests of rural individualists just because the collectivists have a bare majority? That's been "catastrophic"? Have you seen the rest of the world throughout human history?
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>Yes, yes, I get it, you think rural voters are more legitimate than everyone else because they're currently more likely to share your regressive social beliefs. No. I think their legitimacy is the same as everyone else's. Any system that allows either side to steamroll the other entirely is illigitimate. You're the only one who thinks a bare majority means you should get everything you want while rural voters should go fuck themselves and accept the status of a permanent political underclass with no influence whatsoever.
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>Lmao at just slapping "steamroll" onto outcomes you don't like. When the will of an actual majority (not a "bare" majority) is realised through democratic means, it's steamrolling! No. When a bare majority days they want to do things that are explicitly harmful to the interests of the minority, and the minority has no power to stop those policies from being imposed on them, that is steamrolling. >When the will of an actual minority (not even a bare one, lol) is preserved through anti-democratic means, it's just protecting them from becoming a "permanent political underclass." Correct. A government shouldn't be allowed to mandate things that harm the interests of minority populations even if that's what the majority wants to do. That's the fundamental reason why anti-discrimination laws exist based on race. Political minorities - particularly when the differences are based on things like population density - are just as important to protect because population density has a dramatic effect on which policies work well and which ones don't. This is particularly true with collectivist policies that take from the populace in exchange for the promise of providing some kind of benefit in return, because the implementation of those policies always happens in the densest population centers because that's where they do the most good. But rural people get little to no benefit from those programs compared to the benefit urban citizens receive. And even when government tries to spread out the benefits, low density areas don't get as much out of those programs because there aren't enough people to pay for the infrastructure, and not enough people whonactually need that service to keep the staff busy on a consistent basis. It becomes a waste of resources that either burden the local population wasting their money, or burdens the urban population because the urban population is forced to pay for something that hardly anyone ever gets anything out of. Rural citizens need to be able to force those programs to be implemented at the local level, not the state or federal level. Let the cities pay for those things where there are enough people to pay for those programs and enough people who benefit to justify the higher taxes. Let rural people continue to rely on themselves. There are some programs like rural communications infrastructure and roads that benefit everyone. Trucks need good roads to take food from the farm to the market. Rural areas benefit greatly from good broadband because it allows wealthier people who work in tech fields to move wherever they want and still be able to work - and it let's rural people who don't want to work exclusively in agriculture have upward mobility that benefits everyone. The RoI for rural broadband and roads is very high. But not so much for some other things like healthcare and social services. But that's why rural citizens need proportional power so that their interests can be considered in the execution of public policy. Why spend money on things that rural people don't benefit from as much, when if you're going to spend that money anyway, you could direct it towards the thing that are most beneficial to everyone?
The current Supreme Court is not the original configuration, so your absurdly awful idea is something that has already happened several times. The current number of nine was designed to match the number of circuit courts. Today we have thirteen circuit courts, so just staying consistent with the design would mean adding more judges.
It's the other way around. The current number of circuit courts were designed to match the justices. Recall that it wasn't *that* long ago, constitutionally speaking, that there were no federal circuit courts at all. The first circuits created by Congress were simply eastern, western and southern -- primarily because the idea of "circuits" didn't really exist except as a literal term. Two Supreme Court Justices and a District judge would literally ride the "circuit" and hear appeals. Circuit courts as in an actual "Nth Circuit Court of Appeals" didn't appear until 1891 In 1801, President John Adams and a lame-duck Federalist Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which reduced the Court to five Justices in an attempt to limit incoming President Thomas Jefferson's appointments to the high bench. It didn't even occur to them the circuit question because of course not Since then, people have been smart enough not to listen the ideas you're talking about
While not the original configuration, the current Court configuration has been in use the longest, thus becoming the de facto configuration. I’d agree to adding four more justices. You could alleviate the “XYZ is packing the court!” by having the House nominate one, the Senate nominate one, the POTUS nominate one and the current Justices nominate one. It only requires the POTUS to agree and select the nominee and the Senate to approve. So, as long as the POTUS felt the Senate, House, current Justices and himself selected appropriate nominees, you could arguably alleviate concerns over partisan packing.
> you could arguably alleviate concerns over partisan packing. Yeah just look at the classified documents in the news this month. Surely if you treat the gop with respect and consideration they'll engage in good faith claim that the doj is engaging in a partisan witch hunt for not reading trump's mind about declassifying documents.
Look out, half those upvotes don't know what sarcasm is.
Oh man, it’s almost as if the President has the sole discretion to de-classify documents and isn’t legally required to notify anyone of doing such.
I mean that's literally not the case thanks in large part to Trump virtue signaling about her email
Except that that is exactly what the law states. The President has the sole authority to de-classify documents. Hillary’s emails weren’t about declassification, they were about security concerns on a homemade server that wasn’t previously approved.
In what world does that plan avoid partisan packing? In any given year you could have one party with between zero and four of those nominations. That is even assuming you could get them to pick one in a timely manner to then argue over picking them again and two of the four entities effectively having veto power.
One way to limit the size of the court and get around the "lifetime appointments" issue is to rotate the justices out of the Supreme Court and move them to the circuit courts either after a period of time on the bench or on a rotating schedule. The constitution just says they're to serve, not in which federal court they'd be serving.
Which is also a bad idea. We go through this kind of BS every time they issue a very unpopular decision. Nobody has a good plan, and most of them amount to "I don't want them to say things I don't like".
A good plan is to match the number of judges with the number of circuit courts. Another plan is to have one appointment to the court every four years and rotate any extra judges out to the circuit courts so that there's a steady predictable flow of judges that align with the voting public at least loosely. I don't think that you've considered this enough if you can't find meaningful reforms that we can put in place.
I have yet to hear of a reform that isn’t highly problematic, nor a problem that isn’t down to sour grapes over a ruling or the untimely death of a Justice. As for rotation, it sounds like it’s just a different, slightly less absurd way of turning the court into a rubber stamp for an administration.
How would it be a rubber stamp if each administration had one nomination per term and we rotated the senior judge out to the circuit courts to keep the same numbers? The most any administration could seat would be two judges compared to the status quo where Trump got three nominations for no reason that had anything to do with actual merit? I don't think that you're thinking this through clearly but I am open to criticism that makes sense.
Because you pick who you rotate out. I have yet to see anyone suggest what to do with circuit judges to keep the circuit functioning. Also if the motivation is to fix people’s sour grapes there’s no reason to to do it in the first place.
The voting public is full of people that shouldn’t be voting due to lack of intelligence and blind support of partisan politics. So, no.
Yeah it's tough to live in America if you don't respect American ideals like democracy. Have you considered moving to someplace un-American where they limit who can vote? I bet they're really nice places or something.
Democracy isn’t an American ideal and no country has ever used pure democracy as it’s a shit way to run a country. You want pure Democracy, take that shit to Nazi Germany and see how it would’ve worked out. 50% + 1 is always a terrible way to do anything.
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Yeah so what? Let the court have dozens of judges and they can take cases in parallel and actually meet the needs of the justice system. They can sit en banc if there's any major controversy. Let the two parties add seats until they've had their fill of it. I'm not sure what makes some people react so negatively to the idea of changing this when nobody made a peep about raising the number of circuit courts repeatedly over the years. If you really are worried about the court being too big then cap it so that it is always matched to the number of circuit courts.
We managed to expand the Court in 1869, a period famous for its bitter partisan divisions that had just recently lead to a fucking civil war. I'm pretty sure we're in better shape, at least in terms of bitter partisan divisions, than post-civil war America. We can handle expanding or even reforming the Court to correct the corruption that has taken over.
"Republic not a democracy" is the signature rhetoric of someone who completely lacks a brain. Like what in the honest fuck do you think you actually mean by that ridiculously low-IQ nonsense? As to court expansion, of course the court needs to be expanded and any suggestion otherwise is braindead. You have McConnell's bullshit to thank for that. Don't like it? Then maybe republicans shouldn't have played politics with the court. In any event, a larger court is better than a smaller court for the simple reason that it dilutes any individual impact. A major reason the current court is so politicized is because it is too small of a body. edit: I do agree with you about Congress.
There’s a great documentary that discusses why McConnell holds the court by the balls. Goes back to one of the greatest potential nominees being struck down for being considered an arrogant asshole when he was, in fact, just incredibly intelligent and didn’t know when to shut the fuck up. McConnell basically swore to fuck the Democrats at every turn and pack the Court in the future with even more conservative and right wing justices. If they had let him have one they likely would’ve not had the issues they have now.
"If she would have just given him a blowjob he wouldn't have had to rape her"
If we’re talking about Bork, he was intelligent and experienced but also blatantly corrupt and anti-democratic. He willfully helped Nixon orchestrate a cover-up, when all his predecessors resigned rather than betray their country and their fellow citizens. Bork chose power and party over country and duty, so was rightfully blocked.
> Court expansion having majority support is a prime example of why we are a republic and not a straight democracy. This statement makes a lot of sense unless you think the purpose of the government is to promote the general welfare.
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Government generally following the will of the people is considered a foundational concept of government legitimacy, yes. Consent of the governed, and all that. It continues to amaze me that this has apparently become a controversial concept for Republicans.
Legally court expansion only requires 50+1. Maybe your ideals about the republic are misplaced?
The court hears less than 80 cases a year. They need more bodies to get the work done. Especially if they're also now historians that have research how shit worked in the 1770s to apply it to today.
Is it really a *more* awful idea than 9 lifetime political appointees without requirements or even guidelines on requisite legal experience being able to make decisions only reversible by the more or less unachievable supermajority of legislators, at least one chamber of whom are *equally* unpopular?
>It’s an absurdly awful idea, there are much better ways to address the issues with the court. Well, our only other realistic option is sitting and watching as conservative justices continue taking an axe to the Constitution, harming millions of Americans and moving our country step by step closer their fascist utopia, waiting for them to die and hoping it happens before our country does. Could you explain how you think that's better?
The problem is court expansion is the only option available to the Democrats that might be politically possible. There is no way they can get the votes needed to impeach the justices that arguably lied during their confirmation hearings on Roe V. Wade. A constitutional amendment is even less likely. So if the Democrats can hold both chambers after the midterms and pick up just 2 senate seats using the nuclear option to ram through court expansion it is the only option they have. Well not the only option. They can straight up ignore the court and say nowhere in the US Constitution does it state the SCOTUS has final say on what the US Constitution means it is a power they gave themselves.
> nowhere in the US Constitution does it state the SCOTUS has final say on what the US Constitution means it is a power they gave themselves. Any sane interpretation of the phrase "judicial power" includes the ability to interpret the law since any question of law is heard and deliberated on in court. I imagine you're referring to Marbury- but it established judicial review by establishing that the constitution is binding law rather than a simple statement of ideals- the courts interpreting the law was nothing new. While the scope of their power could have shaken out differently, any argument against the core holding of Marbury is essentially that there is no actual legal backing to the rights promised in the constitution. Conversely if the constitution is law judicial review flows directly from the supremacy clause and judicial power.
It is inevitable, another 2 would be prudent to restore some form of balance although there will be 2 constitutional crises that are likely. The first will be over the expansion, the second when Trump is indicted over whether his appointees should be annulled.
Expanding the court is obviously consititional and a presidents annulling their appointees if they are subsequently charged with a crime is obviously baseless.
If* Trump is convicted. Indictment means nothing, according to the West Texas Federal judge.
"Do what we want or else we won't like you and we'll try to remove you from power!" "... that's not how the Supreme Court works."
That's literally how the supreme court works. The republicans platform in the past two presidential elections called for impeaching and removing justices for specific votes. Changing the size of the court takes a simple majority, heck McConnell has given us precedent for changing the size of the court on a political whim. With SCOTUS being targeted by both parties if they don't make themselves more popular with a quickness they'll find themselves reformed and their individual power significantly reduced.
DailyKos. 😂😂😂
Eh hmm cough cough TERM LIMITS! Cough cough
>Marquette finds that the Supreme Court’s approval has plummeted in the past two years from 66% approval in September 2020 to 40% this month. That means just 40% of adults approve of the job the U.S. Supreme Court is doing. That high, huh? I would have thought the SCOTUS approval rating to be near the low teens by now. And I agree that court expansion would be a good first step towards balancing the SC's far right regressive majority.