So, I have a new and novel idea for how to solve the supreme court that has absolutely and totally never been tried before *cough*. I've been thinking, much like the size of the house of representatives, the supreme court's size has never been established in the constitution. The system of nine justices we have today was put in place by the judiciary act of 1869, and could easily be repealed by an act of congress. And maybe it should. You know, these new justices are looking kind of old. Especially Thomas and Alito. Maybe we should encourage justices above 70 to retire, much like Stephen Breyer recently did. I mean, when you get old you get frail, when you get frail, you might struggle to keep up with the case loads of the court. Clarence Thomas might need some help in his crusade to turn us back to the 1700s. Samuel Alito too. So, I have an idea. How about, for every justice that doesn't retire at 70, President Biden gets to appoint an extra supreme court justice! Which means we will get to appoint 2. And when Elana Kegan reaches 70 in 2 years, we'll get another. And then John Roberts in 3. So we could have 4 new justices on the court, potentially all nominated by Joe Biden. And we might actually bring sanity back to the court, as these younger justices won't be so inclined to undo the last half a century of legal precedent. No? Not sold on this? Come on, it's a great idea, and I totally came up with it myself just now!
Okay, you got me. This isn't my idea. This was FDR's infamous court packing plan. I'm not actually serious about this one, unlike my house plan where I AM 100% serious. But outofplatoscave, you might say, FDR's court packing plan was the worst thing FDR did outside of intern the Japanese, why would you propose this? Well, because this is how FDR did things back in the 1930s. Sometimes the supreme court gets out of hand. This wouldn't be the first time the supreme court has been judicial activists in the wrong direction. For 40 years, we had the Lochner Era where the court would regularly shoot down economically progressive legislation, often for BS reasons. Kyle Kulinski of secular talk has argued we might be in a new Lochner era, and what ended that era? FDR doing this.
The point isn't to expand the court. It's to threaten the court with expansion so it stops screwing around. After FDR floated this idea in the 1930s, SCOTUS started going along with his legislation.
If we pressure SCOTUS with this, they might back off of their crazy judicial activism. After all, it's a warning shot across the bow. You might hand wring over how this would hurt the integrity of the court, but the court is already tarnishing its own integrity with crap rulings. SCOTUS is supposed to be America's referee, and right now that ref is making obviously BS calls in favor of one team. It's not even trying to follow the rules in good faith. it's just making up its own rules as it goes. And maybe the answer is to threaten to get more referees in there to counter that. Hopefully it won't come to this and they'll back down, but if they won't, well...again, the court ended up ruining it sown integrity anyway.
I honestly am starting to think, given the nature of this new conservative SCOTUS, that this might be the only thing we can do to counter them. If we wait for SCOTUS to shed its conservative justices naturally, we might be waiting 15 years. ANd who knows who will be president by then. To be fair, we dont live in an era of FDR with democratic supermajorities, so this idea is risky too. If Trump or Desantis win in 2024, they might be packing it. So this really is the nuclear option. But, given the nature of these latest rulings and the fact that the court is throwing its own integrity down the garbage disposal, maybe some hardball is necessary.
Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud on this one. This might be a terrible idea that could backfire horribly, but honestly? Im starting to think that this might be necessary if SCOTUS keeps acting up like this. I havent been for court packing in the past. Even with bogus rulings like ciitizens united. Because at least back then the court had SOME integrity, even if I didnt agree with all of its rulings. But now it's just ignoring judicial precedent and making crap up to push a political agenda, and the left needs to push back, HARD. Checks and balances exist for a reason, and the rest of government needs to check the court.
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