Who cares who is appointed. First act of the new Dem president should be to have Congress increase the number of seats on the Court to 12. Then conservaturds lose every ruling 5-7.
FDR tried this in the 1930’s and it didn’t fly. Not sure if doing this would require amending the constitution. Of course, we could always cut 5 seats from the current court. If we did set a precedent for doing this kind of change, we could end with a SCOTUS as large as a typical NFL bench by the turn of the next century, if not before.
“Tunnels” must be an euphemism for “sewers” ?
“If you can endure the smell here, you may be a qualified candidate”
Odd number would work better for decisions…there could never be a 6-6 “tie”. FDR did try to pack the court
in 1937.
Nope, absolutely no tinkering with the Constitution required, SCOTUS has actually had varying numbers of Justices over time. But Congress has the purse strings and I believe that’s what killed FDR’s attempt.
I found this link
ETA another link re Roosevelt
From first link:
“The number of Supreme Court justices has changed over the years,” Kathy Arberg, spokesperson for the U.S. Supreme Court, told Live Science. “The number of justices has been as high as 10.” [8 Supreme Court Decisions that Changed US Families]
Congress increased the number to seven in 1807, to nine in 1837, then to 10 in 1863.
Then, in order to prevent President Andrew Johnson, who was soon to be impeached, from naming any new Supreme Court justices, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act of 1866. This Act reduced the number from 10 to seven. The decrease was to take effect as the seats became vacant.
However, only two seats were freed up by 1869, so there were eight justices. Congress added one seat back in and decided that there should be nine justices. The Judiciary Act of 1869 officially set the number, and it has not budged since.”
ETA. I found the part where congress passed a law to prevent Andrew Jackson from naming new justices interesting. McConnells legacy will be he’s a liar, thief and coward. Probably a traitor too.
Well done, thanks for the research. I had never heard of the Andrew Johnson gambit, pretty clever letting the court shrink by attrition to deny him an appointment. Of course he was impeached, but did keep his office. Maybe THAT should be the new rule, an impeached Prez loses appointment power, so if they impeach Peachfuzz but fail to remove him, at least his judicial legacy is contained. We’ll name it the McConnell Rule. .