My modest proposal to fix SCOTUS: Add 4 justices to at least dilute the partisanship and corruption and establish a term limit of 20 years for active service, after which the Justice would enter “senior” status, still get paid, and able to sub in when there’s a temporary vacancy, but not be an active member of the Court. Both these changes would theoretically not require a Constitutional amendment. But of course, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate would still be needed to pass them.
@johnldeboer I like it. I would tie the number of justices to the number of federal districts 1:1 which would give the same result.
I would also disband the chief justice position as it is. The justice from whose district each case comes would serve as chief for that case. All cases would be heard by a random selection of 8 justices plus the assigned chief meaning there would be ample time for research and doing SCOTUS work that isn't actually sitting on cases.
Note this setup is expandable.
@danielbsmith Yes, 13 would correspond to the number of federal districts, the way 9 used to. But having a random selection of 8 justices presents a potential problem, since everything they do now is in secret, and having the 9th be from the district the case originated from would increase the district shopping currently going on.
@johnldeboer I don't understand the problem. In virtually every other court with multiple judges in this country cases are assigned randomly. This is not unusual. If anything, this would bring SCOTUS more in line with the rest of the country and would remove bias. As it exists now we know exactly what to expect from each judge if a case makes it all the way to SCOTUS.
@danielbsmith So instead of five justices deciding the laws of the country, you’d have even less? And how many would be included in the random selection out of nine? Seven, five, three? Assuming the selection would really be random (and how would that be done?), depending on how many would constitute the panel, with the current makeup of the Court - six conservatives, three liberals - an even more skewed panel could mathematically be selected.
@johnldeboer Sounds like a plan.