The Supreme Court Doesn't Need 9 Justices. It Needs 27

The idea in posited in the article below isn't 'court packing'. Hear me out.

Republicans are afraid that democrats want to engage in court packing by adding 3 or more justices. In point of fact, given the court is 6/3 with a conservative majority, it is already packed. Republicans packed it. Now, those who argue there is no such thing as a conservative or liberal justice are talking nonsense. There is a reason McConnell wanted Gorsuch over Garland, he said so: "He's a liberal", McConnell exclaimed.

So, I don't want to hear any BS argument that 'there is no such thing'. And, by the way, Garland is no liberal, let's make that clear, he is as centrist as they come, because no liberal would have ever sided with Trump on anything, yet he did, a few times. and no liberal would have taken 22 days to figure out that Bannon should be indicted. Not to mention the other times he sided with Trump. ( https://www.motherjones.com/politic...-biden-donald-trump-policies-doj-court-cases/ ) No liberal justice would be taking so long to prosecute Trump and his band of criminals (yes, that's a partisan view, but that's the point) and it's beginning to look like Garland may never prosecute Trump for 1/6. So, end of argument on Garland being a liberal.

Now then, the article argues that, for one thing, 9 justices were instituted in 1869, when the nation was ONE TENTH of it's current size, so there is a case load proportionality issue here. But the essence of the article is that 27 justices, limited to adding one per year or so, until it reaches 27, will allow for a more balanced, more democratic, more consensus driven, court --- and this should diffuse any idea that 'one president will try and pack the court' because the article's recommended gradual approach won't allow it.

Right now, conservatives are going to get their way most of the time (because of the 6/3 court, at least on the big issues), and given the nation is center left (proof of that is that republicans haven't won the popular vote in a long long time for the presidency) the court doesn't reflect the values of the nation. A centrist court, balanced, say, 19/18 one way or the other would be far more balanced, and one justice wouldn't be deciding for 130 million people like a 5/4 court would, noting that a party line vote is less likely to occur with a 19/18 court. One unelected lawyer gave us Citizens United, which (for us liberals) has turned out to be one of most destructive rulings for America. (And, to be fair to conservatives, they would say the same regarding the ACA being upheld) Again, it would vastly decrease the number of times rulings would be done on party line votes, which is to say, with the larger court, the odds of a party line vote are vastly decreased, and that is the main reason, plus the fact that some circuit courts already have 27 justices, and no one is complaining there.

So, before you kneejerk a 'packing' response, no, that's not the objective, please read the article which makes the case, okay?

Also, another point not in the article I would like to see address, well, I'd like to see another law created, one that would disallow the Senate to abuse the 'advise and consent' clause of the Constitution such as where McConnell said he was exercising the Senate's right of 'advise and consent' to not allow Obama to appoint a judge and at least give that appointee a hearing during Obama's last year (during an election year), but McConnell turned around and did precisely the same thing when Trump appointed a judge in his election year, and to add insult to injury, he appointed her WHILE the votes on his election were being cast (Obama's appointment was almost a year in advance, so, so much for 'letting the people have a say' as he put it, for Garland, but not for Gorsuch), revealing the mind-boggling hypocrisy of McConnell.

Therefore, the phrase 'advise and consent' should not be abused to disallow an appointed justice to have a hearing just because the leader of the Senate wants to play power politics. I sincerely doubt the framers had that in mind when they added that clause in the Constitution. Now, I'm no originalist, but sometimes common sense should be applied where original intent doesn't conflict with an evolved nation on a given point. They apparently believed that Senators would act in good faith insofar as 'advise and consent'. It was never meant to be a tool for power politics. Yet, here we are with McConnell.

https://time.com/5338689/supreme-court-packing/

The battle over court packing is being fought on the wrong terms. Americans of all political stripes should want to see the court expanded, but not to get judicial results more favorable to one party. Instead, we need a bigger court because the current institutional design is badly broken. The right approach isn’t a revival of FDR’s court packing plan, which would have increased the court to 15, or current plans, which call for 11. Instead, the right size is much, much bigger. Three times its current size, or 27, is a good place to start, but it’s quite possible the optimal size is even higher. This needn’t be done as a partisan gambit to stack more liberals on the court. Indeed, the only sensible way to make this change would be to have it phase in gradually, perhaps adding two justices every other year, to prevent any one president and Senate from gaining an unwarranted advantage.

In 1869, when the number nine was chosen, the U.S. was roughly a tenth of its current size, laws and government institutions were far smaller and less complex, and the volume of cases was vastly lower.

The court’s current design is troubling. Proof is found in a commonplace observation at every mid-term and presidential election, when it is said that the most critical outcome of the election will be the one or handful of justices appointed to the Supreme Court by the President. The refrain has become so common that we have become blind to its frightening implications. How could it be that the most important decision a President makes is picking one non-elected lawyer, distinguished at this point mainly by their ability to avoid ever saying anything controversial, to a court that decides cases at an average rate of one or two a week?

Recent years’ decisions, and the frequency of 5-4 splits, have made it difficult to disagree with the fact that the Supreme Court is a fundamentally political, partisan body.
A much larger court would make the Supreme Court more comparably sized to our federal circuit courts, as law professor Jonathan Turley observed in a his 2012 call for a 19-person court.

The larger size of the circuits, then, yields two advantages. First, it reduces the influence of a single, swing voter like Kennedy or, before him, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Second, there is variance in the panels, which are randomly drawn. Even on a supposedly liberal circuit, like the west coast’s 9th Circuit, cases are sometimes heard and decided by panels composed of three conservatives. The system promotes variety and prevents excessive entrenchment of, say, a 5-4 majority. This is counterbalanced by the fact that the full circuit can choose to review the decision, providing consistency. A modified version of this approach could be adopted for an an enlarged Supreme Court.
[...]
There are further benefits to a much larger Supreme Court. A larger court could hear more cases, which could help break up the cabal that currently controls the court’s docket. One of the most terrifying aspects of current Supreme Court practice is the politicking to get particular cases before it, which benefits a small cadre of insiders who are usually the system’s most staunch defenders.
[...]
A 2014 Reuters investigation found that just 66 lawyers, of whom 63 were white and 58 were men, were six times as likely to get their cases heard than any other lawyers. Half were former Supreme Court clerks. By hearing many more cases, a larger court would break up this scheme. A larger docket would be healthy in other ways, allowing a uniform national resolution of more disagreements between regional circuits. There is nothing in the Constitution that envisions the court hearing such a small fraction of the nation’s cases, and the framers lived in an era of extremely low federal judicial volume and minimal influence of the Supreme Court. At three times its current size, the court’s ratio of justices to filed appeals would be more in line with that of the circuits.
[...]
The greatest feature of an expansion is that it would convert what currently seems like an unavoidable vice—the court’s politicization—into a strength. Law cannot be divorced from politics. But politics can be made to work better with better institutional design. Just as a 9-person Congress would be highly undemocratic, dangerously powerful, and ultimately ineffective, a 9-person court is no better. Larger bodies have some inherent features that are more democratic and effective: they are more representative, and they can include a more diverse group; they can do more work; their splits are less likely to be narrow and therefore arbitrary; they have more regular, natural turnover, and any one vacancy would not dominate the political scene as it does today.
[...]
But increasing court size should not favor one particular party, and should appeal to all Americans—save perhaps the Supreme Court bar and former clerks.

 

republicans packed the court when they denied Obama his pick

so I am fine with dems packing the courts

 

There should be 13, at least - one justice for each court of appeals. I'll go a step further, and say that there should be no permanent SCOTUS justices. Each appeals court should provide one of their justices on a rotating basis. Mix it up, and end the entrenchment of ideologues of any stripe.

 

be careful what you ask for. zero biden appointees will be confirmed. the justices you propose will be appointed by pres for life trump or his equally deplorable successor.

we will have to work with the court we have, or worse.

 

why stop at 27...

seriously tho, what problems have we ever solved by making comitees bigger? Its not like We The People are going to be any happier when we disagree with what 27 people say we can and cant do than when its just 9.

Bigger groups just make it easier to obfuscate the incompetence and corruption of the individuals within them, and harder to hold them accountable.

 

Proof that no matter who runs in 2024 on the Republican ticket, they will never be given a chance by Democrats.

 

Why do I have the feeling that if the makeup were 6-3 liberal the OP would be arguing that things are just dandy as they are?

 

i would have voted for joe biden's dog over trump. 80 million americans agree.

 

Yeah the 80 million people more than half whom arguably just wanted the media to just stop talking about Trump and since they haven't and Biden is making Trump look like a genius, there is now growing amounts of buyers remorse. And it will get worse if and when the fed begins to apply it's usual brake upon inflation, tightening the money supply and raising the prime.

 

i would be happy if trump stopped talking about trump.

 

"it needs as many justices as it takes to insure democratic ideals are constantly upheld in court!"

 

Apparently you've never listened to a Trump speech. Almost all of what he talks about is America and Americans even as Biden agrees to surrender America to globalist billionaires in the usual high falluting hubris fueled, confab over in Scotland. By the way I hope you like tofu, they have seen the future and it's vegan.

 

I don't even know where to begin. At the top I guess.

Court Packing: Republican's did not pack the court. Packing the court is adding seats to the court in order to sway the court a particular direction. Putting justices on the bench that has open seats is NOT packing the court. No matter how you try and spin it otherwise. Saying that it is is a lie. Full stop. This was established when FDR tried to pack the courts by adding seats. Adding this new definition is nothing more than a way to frame the argument in your favor. It won't work. Period.

Garland not a liberal: BS. You even admit that its a partisan view just because he's not doing things that you want him to and is not fast enough for you.

As for the article. Dismissed. No matter how many justices you put on the bench there will always be a person that decides in close cases. That should be obvious from Congress. Or are you going to try and deny that Manchin and Sinema are not key in getting things passed in the Senate?

Additionally the article tries to play the race card. Can liberals ever NOT use the race card?

As for split cases here's the stats for you:



LINK: In Barrett’s first term, conservative majority is dominant but divided - SCOTUSblog

15% of cases were "polarized". IE: 6-3 split. 5/3 on one because Barrett recused herself.

And lastly, SCOTUS is not supposed to be a democracy. That is why Justices are appointed for life and don't need to run for election. They are supposed to rule on the Constitutionality of laws. Not pander to the majority OR minority.

SCOTUS is not near as "broken" as liberal scare mongers would have you believe.

 

Exactly so. It was also fun to note that while he carefully pointed out that most of the lawyers practicing before the court are white males he completely failed to point out that the majority if not the overwhelming majority of those are well left of center.

 

The more I hear about Garland, the more I believe that he should have never even been nominated to the Supreme Court.

 

And here we go again. Trump, Trump, Trump in a thread having nothing to do with Trump and the name not even mentioned. Doesn’t this forum have rules against going off-topic?

 

you brought up the 2024 election, in which the undisputed leader of the republican party will be a candidate.

 

What does the 2024 election have to do with Trump? Is he the confirmed candidate? Source please.

In fact my initial post was obviously posting an alternative candidate in 2024. It had nothing to do with Trump. Trump doesn’t live in my head like he does lefties.

 

I occasionally flip over to MSNBC for a few seconds. It appears that they have a new obsession, at least temporarily, Rittenhouse.

 

which republican will challenge trump in a primary? if trump is alive he is the candidate by acclamation.

 

You are jumping to conclusions. Nobody knows anything. There is no guarantee he even wants to run. Why would he? So he can be viscously attacked 24/7 365 for another 4 years? That’s why people hate the left man. Because the left never even gave the guy a chance. They were screaming for his impeachment before he ever even swore in. That is why politics suck and why the country is so divided. Neither side wants anything to do with the other. The whole system is broken. I have no idea how we are going to crawl out of this mess. If you think a Democrat President or two is going to fix this crap, you are dreaming.

 

This is a tough one for me. On the one hand, I don't believe that 'tit for tat' is a good way to make policy. On the other hand, it seems that Republicans are so incredibly brazen in their actions that they don't recognize the injustices they have perpetrated in their desire for power (with respect to SCOTUS).

 

"Elections have consequences."

- B. H. Obama

 

I agree. We should have 350,000,000 justices on the Court.

 

He is the new Hitler as far as they're concerned.