[dubcanada]

Why stop at 21, why not get 1 supreme court from each state? You could get 2 if you wanted to be spicy and setup a sort of room for them all to debate in. Then after they heard the debates they could vote on the matter and if it passes it gets written into law. A sort of congress...

[tshaddox]

Increasing the size of the court isn’t a slippery slope to somehow making justices elected by states/districts. It’s not like as soon as you get too many justices it turns into a legislature.

The interesting differences between the legislative and judicial branch is not the number of people (moreover, the Supreme Court is not exactly the entirety of the federal judicial branch).

[bell-cot]

I was thinking "enough to routinely overrule the current 9 Justices".

Representing individual states, as such, is supposed to be the job of Congressmen. And - with how low-functioning Congress is looking, these days, patterning anything new after them is probably a bad idea.

[AnimalMuppet]

So Congress is dysfunctional. The Supreme Court is semi-functional, but functioning in a way that you don't like. So you want Congress to vote in a bunch of new people to fix the Supreme Court. Why do you think that will work, instead of be ruined by the usual Congressional dysfunction?

And, if the party in power adds enough Supreme Court justices to routinely overturn the current 9, what makes you think that when the other side is in power, they won't add enough to overturn your 12?

The Supreme Court is not supposed to bend with the wind of every political election. It's by design.

[vlovich123]

> The Supreme Court is not supposed to bend with the wind of every political election. It’s by design

Funny. Seems like it bent pretty hard in the last election. Why should we only honor the bends to the right?

[r2_pilot]

Particularly given McConnell's... Interpretations... Of how his obligated duties were fulfilled in regards to the timeliness of actions taken to ensure that such seats were filled.

[luxuryballs]

did it though?

[vlovich123]

Are you asking if it did bend to the right? You’re asking if an additional conservative vote shift in a hairline composition shifted the balance? Would you be asking the same if it was a 6-3 liberal majority?

This courts been in power for 8 years and has overturned 3 major ways that the government operates:

1. Roe v Wade overturned so that the government is back in charge of reproductive rights decisions instead of leaving it as a deeply personal decision for a family to make on their own. There’s pretty clearly a lack of any evidence that late term abortions are a cavalier thing. When it gets that late it’s not a change of mind thing 99.999% of the time.

2. Brady and similar decisions basically removing congress’ and states’ abilities to regulate guns

3. Chevron doctrine overturned so unless congress writes impossible laws the courts get to arbitrarily define ambiguities even though it was delegated to the executive to create justifiable well researched exposition of those ambiguities.

Basically, this court has already delivered 3 major decisions shifting American politics in pretty drastic ways in the 8 years. This is certainly not a liberal or status quo court.

And the court itself has serious perception issues of accepting gifts and bribes (and significantly reducing the definition of what counts as corruption in the first place, which is well outside their mandate considering these are actually laws congress passed). They’re badly in need of cultural reform as is congress and in both scenarios adjusting the number of representatives and the number of justices is called for to relieve the pressure that’s been building.

[tstrimple]

Don’t forget that they legalized bribery as well. Just so long as the payment is made after the fact it’s considered a “gratuity”. This court is making drastic long reaches changed and overthrowing precedent whenever convenient.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-public-corruption-b...

> The high court’s 6-3 opinion along ideological lines found the law criminalizes bribes given before an official act, not rewards handed out after.

> “Some gratuities can be problematic. Others are commonplace and might be innocuous,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote. The lines aren’t always clear, especially since many state and local officials have other jobs, he said.

> The high court sided with James Snyder, a Republican who was convicted of taking $13,000 from a trucking company after prosecutors said he steered about $1 million worth of city contracts to the company.

[luxuryballs]

none of that seems politically left or right though

[ebiester]

You act as if this is the first time that expanding the court has been discussed.

Congress has yet to do this because it will never pass - at least unless one party gets a filibuster-proof majority in the senate or the filibuster is removed.

[intended]

>The Supreme Court is not supposed to bend with the wind of every political election. It's by design.

The design that can and has been undermined and bent on partisan lines, because of a dedicated campaign to achieve this very goal?

[bell-cot]

> The Supreme Court is not supposed to bend with the wind of every political election. It's by design.

Looking at a few Supreme Court's rulings, say -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._Anderson

- I'd be inclined to say that the Supreme Court's design is to bend the results of every political election to suit their own wishes.