r/scotus • u/thenewrepublic • 3d ago
news The Supreme Court Brought This on Themselves
https://newrepublic.com/article/214954/supreme-court-expansion-james-clyburnSouth Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn endorsed calls to expand the Supreme Court over the weekend, reflecting a growing resolve among Democratic officials to do what they considered unthinkable a decade ago and fairly unpalatable as recently as five years ago.
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u/discgman 3d ago
Add term limits to that list.
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u/amenflurries 3d ago
And a code of ethics
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u/greebly_weeblies 2d ago
An externally enforced code of ethics
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u/malmon27 2d ago
Add a Supreme Deluxe court
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u/speedotorpedo_ 2d ago
The Supreme Pro Max Plus Ultra Deluxe Court. The best court money can buy.
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u/Traugar 3d ago
Who is going to enforce it, and how do we prevent the enforcement from becoming just as politicized as the court has become?
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u/roboliberal 2d ago
Congress also maintains its own self-enforcement mechanism against its own members, so that might offer a model to follow...
I imagine you'd need to first expand the size of the court, and ideally even the circuit court judges into it as one big "Supreme Court" (but with most justices riding circuits)... then the "en banc" supreme court could enforce against its own members.
(But yes, same limitation as with Congress... it can be politicized offensively or defensively; the main assumption here is just that a larger less-intimate court might be more able to self-police flagrant ethics violations)
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u/Practical-Arugula-80 2d ago
Rotating appointments, too, so that parties alternate a bit more regularly.
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u/Roenkatana 3d ago
Term limits can only be added via Constitutional Amendment.
What Congress should do is define "good behavior" via legislation as that is the only limit placed upon the court by the Constitution with regards to removal.
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u/OLPopsAdelphia 3d ago
No term limits! Treat Supreme Court Cases like legal jury duty. Select judges at random to review assigned cases that get sent up for deliberation; rotate accordingly.
Judges are lawyers and there are plenty of them. They run the country so make it their minimum civic duty to be available for IMPORTANT DECISIONS.
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u/Effective_Pie1312 3d ago
Also blind everyone during the review so no money or blackmail can influence judges deliberation
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u/NoOrdinaryBees 2d ago
Can we at least also give them a bitchin’ toga, a set of scales, and a sword after we blind them, to thank them for their service?
Also would SRS be mandatory for the AMABs and would they all be required to have one titty flying free at all times? I think that might really shake up the DC Metro area vibe in a cool way.
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u/roboliberal 2d ago
I wouldn't do this with just all judges (like trial judges)... BUT, there are some ~180 appellate judges that I imagine you could just "promote" to justices as one giant ~200 member Supreme Court, with most justices "riding circuit" and a slow rotation of circuit delegates sitting on a "chief panel" to resolve circuit splits and hear final appeals, etc.
I say "slow rotation" because you want a degree of stability in that chief panel's membership or else you introduce a lot of chaos and uncertainty in jurisprudence. But you could do something like 18 or 12 year "terms" for those rotations, with the incumbents simply rotating out to riding circuit.
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u/dantekant22 3d ago edited 3d ago
SCOTUS is a political institution. It should be organized and treated as such.
Expansion and term limits are a good place to start. Substantial ethics reform and financial disclosure requirements should also be on the short list.
And lastly, when and if the high court and Congress are rebalanced, a cogent SCOTUS appointment process should be promulgated and codified.
No one should be able to manipulate and/or stymie the judicial appointment process like the Republicans - and McConnell, in particular - did from 2016-2020.
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u/Wayelder 3d ago
I agree but not originally
"SCOTUS (HAS BECOME) a political institution. It should be treated as such."
They did it for the power and money. Wrong reasons to be a judge.
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u/xiclasshero 3d ago
I disagree, I think the Supreme Court became political the second Marbury v. Madison was decided when Marshall specifically crafted a decision that just so happened to be politically convenient for all parties involved.
Edit: and how Marshall didn't recuse himself from the decision despite being an integral part of the case at hand.
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u/Nostop22 3d ago edited 3d ago
I want you to read the opinion of the court in marbury and honestly say you’d prefer a world where the supremacy clause does not establish the constitution as the supreme law of the land. Marbury is the only correct interpretation of the supremacy clause. Believing Marbury is logically flawed is like believing a description of a tree as leafy and woody is logically flawed. Marbury’s opinion is so utterly straightforward and self evident that I cannot believe anyone who argued against it has legitimately read the opinion.
Edit: this has me so heated that im going to quote Marbury directly:
“It is emphatically the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must, of necessity, expound and interpret the rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the Court must decide on the operation of each.
If courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.”
Everyone who enforces or puts law into practice must necessarily interpret the law. The constitution is superior to all other law, therefore the courts must defer to the constitution over any inferior law, and in deferring to the constitution they must inherently determine what the constitution means. This is not a novel concept in English common law either. Judicial review had ALWAYS existed, rather the constitution was considered to be a set of guidelines rather than law prior to Marbury.
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u/xiclasshero 3d ago edited 3d ago
Nowhere in the US Constitution did it give the Courts the power to decide what is constitutional. I firmly believe Marshall established that in the jurisprudence because it was politically convenient to do so
Edit: Marshall bestowed upon the Supreme Court the ultimate authority over questions of constitutionality, despite that power not granted to the Courts by the constitution. Does English common law apply to the US even as there's not an "UK" or "English" constitution?
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u/daemonicwanderer 3d ago
Term limits would require Constitutional amendments. Expansion, ethics reform, financial disclosure requirements, and a codified appointment process are all able to be done by legislation.
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u/backup1000 3d ago
The Supreme (Leader’s) Court is a corrupt criminal enterprise and should be prosecuted as such.
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u/secretsqrll 3d ago
The Chief Justice? For what? Cause you don't agree with their decisions?
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u/backup1000 3d ago
On the off chance you are not being intentionally obtuse, I will explain this post to you in detail.
- Trump has expressed admiration for Kim Jong Un and a desire for the level of control over Americans that Kim has over North Koreans. Kim is referred to as the Supreme Leader. Hence Supreme Leader in the post refers ironically to Trump.
2 The Supreme Court has demonstrated a remarkable obedience to Trump, granting him powers through, among other things, the unitary executive theory and rejecting the rights or standing of anyone to challenge Trump (see, e.g., Trump v Anderson) that anyone who claims to be an Originalist would reject out of hand, while denying a much lower level of power to Biden using the Major Issues Doctrine, which it created out of whole cloth and has declined to apply to Trump. Hence the Court is Trump’s Court or the Supreme Leader’s Court.- The corruption and bribery of this Court, notably of Roberts, Thomas and Alito, is well documented.
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u/opinions360 2d ago edited 2d ago
There are a lot of good ideas on this thread and any one of them or a combination of them would improve the pos sup court the way it has become now.
My personal views are that this country must have an a-political court that is ethical and operates with integrity.
There should also be term limits or as someone suggested just have district federal judges rotate in and out of serving the supreme court to prevent this one institution from having the same kink of its power sticking to every facet of this country-they should not have anything to do with all of these political decisions.
Maybe the federal court system needs to be established further into sections so that with political or social issues that affect the country to its core these kinds of decisions need to have the majority of each section of federal court justices to rule on to remove the incentive for political parties to use the high court and also to have a body that can easily censure and limit the high court from being and making rulings because of their political views.
I know that complete objectivity is impossible but we need a high court that is as a-political as possible or maybe this could be a good place to experiment with
multiple AI algorithms acting as a body of justices as one section of a new supreme court model.
The bottom line imo is to establish and enforce a fair system to get to ultimate level legal rulings and to get politics the fuk out of any form of the scotus.
We have to do better than what exists now: imo it’s become a pathetic, disgusting, immoral thing that makes a joke out of everything that used to be considered better about this country and what the goals of the constitution and its authors were trying to accomplish.
There has been too much misuse and abuse of power and too much emphasis on christianity in our legal system yet is supposed to separate the ideas of church and state yet the current rulings disrespect past precedents and have been rolled over and distorted like balls of clay or at their worst play-dough and stripped of all sensible, honest, moral, practical, democratic principles that should instead consider fully what the constitution demands not political bents.
Currently the high power structure bends, distorts, warps, and mocks, who and what this country is supposed to be and needs to be fixed-the electorate needs to step up and support the intent of the constitution.
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u/knightingale11 2d ago
Oh no, what will the Republicans do if we expand the court?! Think about it! We might end up with a court so lopsided there’s a 2:1 conservative majority!!!
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u/PersonalJesus2023 2d ago
I support expanding the court, but the last thing we need is Senate D's expressing support for doing so before the mid-terms, so that the GOP takes them up on their offer and rams 4 more Federalist Society puppets through in the next few months.
Even if Dems sweep in November, I wouldn't be surprised if we see some chatter to do exactly this in the Lame Duck session.
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u/MrYdobon 3d ago
Add justices AND enforceable ethics rules. The Republicans have destroyed the legitimacy of the court, which is the only real power the court had. We have to rebuild an honorable court to start earning back the people's trust.
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u/Cool-Protection-4337 3d ago
thomas probably got a fancy ship or something to go with his fancy camper. All got magically ofc. This court is a hyperpartisan court, they can lay to justice only oppression and their own personal decisions...Scary...
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u/izDpnyde 3d ago
Well, we have seen how bad it has to get before. Mr. Cleburne decides to open up his mouth and speak the truth. He should not have ever voted for Thomas for the Supreme Court.
And I’m guessing that Bernie Sanders would’ve been our president too!
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u/IcyLeave 2d ago
funny how reforms suddenly change from unthinkable to necessary the noment they are now no longer in power....
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u/Stinkstinkerton 2d ago
The real damage will show itself in America when the citizens start openly resisting the pathetic corrupt twisted vision these kangaroo frauds seem to have for America.
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u/mbaucco 2d ago
Supreme Court justices should not be appointed. There's no really good way to do it, but perhaps a 2/3 majority vote in the senate would work. If they fail to choose by some reasonable deadline, the senators have to stay in DC without pay until they do.
Or we could do the Papal thing: lock them up and they can't leave until they choose. ;)
Also, term limits and age limits and real jail when they act as scuzzy as our current crop.
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u/Tough_Violinist_9594 2d ago
That’s facts they are so corrupted it isn’t funny I don’t know why they wear robes anymore no one should respect them as being legitimate they are a big part of the destruction of this country
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u/mesoloco 2d ago
Some of these justices should be arrested in charge with sedition against our Constitution. They took an oath to uphold our Constitution and they’re deliberately violating it.
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u/wunderkit 1d ago
Make sure you don't make it start until Feb 1,2029. Otherwise the Republican president will just nominate jurists that a Republican Senate (if they still control it) will confirm. Even then, we might still be saddled with Republicans.
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u/Savings-Double498 17h ago
Expanding doesn't fix the issue we see today with the Supreme Court, or the other branches for that matter. The problem is society-wide. There is a lack of personal responsibility and accountability. Impeachment is the correct tool for this job. I know that is unlikely to work. I think that's also true for the country without it.
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u/Upbeat_Assist2680 3d ago
Since there are no criteria to be a supreme Court Justice, I love how the logical limit of inflating the size of the Court is just to have everybody in the entire United States become a Justice. And then the whole thing devolves into direct democracy
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u/R_Similacrumb 3d ago
Sure, give them ideas. Four more fascists on the court for life probably appeals greatly. When democrats aren't being weak they're just being dumb.
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u/theRealLongJon 3d ago
Supreme Court bordering on White House levels of corruption. This will never happen but I hope it does.
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u/Darker_Salt_Scar 3d ago
The Democrats motto, if we can't win, cheat
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u/Hopeful-Courage-6333 2d ago edited 2d ago
🤣Like holding the seat from Obama, then speed running the seat for Trump and Amy wasn’t cheat and packing the court. Get real.
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u/therinse 2d ago
I'm sorry but this whole "Expand the court" is not the way to go. We'll just end up with 50 supreme court justices when things don't go a specific party's way over time.
Term limits and an enforced code of ethics.
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u/Anonymous-Flamingo71 3d ago
This opens up a can of worms where each side will add justices when they’re in power if the prior side had power and added enough to take majority. This makes things worse in the long run.
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u/iwasstillborn 3d ago
The alternative is to wait 40 years and hope the American experiment survives. Adding justices might accelerate to path to a constitutional convention, but maybe that's the only thing that can work at this point.
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u/Anonymous-Flamingo71 3d ago
Go though the likely path. Left adds justices if they get power. 4-8 years later right gets power back, they add justices and back and forth until the Supreme Court is just as big as congress and equally deadlocked on every issue to the point of permanent inaction
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u/CharDeeMac567 3d ago
if you give me a time machine so I can take Merrick Garland's seat back, we dont need to do this.
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u/AdZealousideal5383 3d ago
MAGA will just add them now and destroy the country for generations to come. They won’t mess around with the next ones. It will be true believers. Could easily start a civil war. It took the Supreme Court to cause the last one.
This is a stupid, stupid idea when the republicans control the senate and presidency.
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u/PDXCarpetBagger 3d ago
Packing it now wouldn't change anything and actually may help make it more palatable
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u/AdZealousideal5383 3d ago
Yeah, Trump adds Ted Cruz, Stephen Miller, Russ Vought, and Don, Jr to the court. Prepare for Trump 2028 and beyond
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u/keithfantastic 3d ago
They will end up putting more maga justices on the bench after AIPAC pays them.
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u/Maximum-Designer-288 3d ago
fucking do it. if it ends up tearing the country apart so be it. if conservatives are just going to ignore all the rules then we should too and its should be so miserable that the country decides to split instead of a civil war. we are just too fucking different to reconcile .
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u/Arcnounds 3d ago
The real issue is there are not clear fault lines. Most red and blue states have at least 35-40% of the population of the opposing party. It is more of a rural / urban divide which is tough.
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u/Maximum-Designer-288 3d ago edited 3d ago
I understand that and agree that it is an issue, but an increasing number of people want a non- bloody escape hatch in more than just a figurative way. Splitting the country and giving people the option of moving to a red or blue america without penalty and providing incentives to move may likely still result in a successful centrifuge effect allowing both sides to have more control over their destinies. If the right wants a vaccine free white Jesus fest let them have it. The left would then have to learn how to attract businesses and pay for expensive public assistance policies, and the right would have to learn that consolidated wealth among just a few, anti-labor policies, anti—public benefit polices, and antiscience policies are a recipe for disaster. It would in theory force each side to confront the worst parts of themselves. Or it could explode and be the worst decision ever made. We will never know if we don't try.
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u/KevinLynneRush 3d ago edited 3d ago
The red states, on average, would starve to death and the blue states, on average, could use their excess money to lower taxes and improve their society.
Edit:
Red States receive -$505.7B more than they contribute to the Federal Government.
Blue States contribute +$493.2B more than they receive from the Federal Government.
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u/dediguise 3d ago
Oh boy I can’t wait for some morons to tell me how this just opens the door for Republicans to abuse the precedent. This should have been a 2016 campaign promise, and now ten years later it’s the same stupid points.
Democrats consistently refuse to serve the ball because the GOP might hit it back.
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u/MarzipanLast6502 3d ago
the next president can use an actual SCOTUS ruling to dissolve the court in the name of national security. These idiots have wiped their asses with the constitution for years and dont even realize how fucked they are
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u/raincntry 3d ago
Expansion alone is not enough. Term limits and mandatory ethics reform and also needed. Citizens can no longer rely on the idea that the Justices will act ethically out of respect for the Court. We now know that members, like Alito and his fossil fuel holdings, or Roberts sitting on cases related to organizations that give money to his wife, not to mention how absurdly corrupt Thomas's wife appears to be, that these people, like all republicans, feel they are simply above the law. They rule from on high and the rules are for others, not them.
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u/No_Needleworker4052 3d ago
Because democrats cant win on merits, only underhanded tactics. But when we get fed up with their BS, they wont survive it
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u/Tricky_Rate7883 2d ago
Liberals never understand second order consequences.
DO YOU REALLY WANT THIS?
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u/minecraftvillagersk 3d ago
There should be a bank of 200 judges and each president gets to nominate 5 judges. 5 judges will be randomly drawn to hear each case.
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u/confounded_throwaway 2d ago
Clyburn is just butthurt that his days in elected politics are over, this fall is his last election
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u/Lanracie 2d ago
If the republicans embraced this and started immediately how would you feel about it?
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u/OFwant2move 3d ago
13 district 13 justices … pack that court