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I've said it before, I'll say it again: pitch it as increasing SCOTUS to at least 100 Justices, with randomly selected pools of 9 to hear each case, such that no single Justice matters so much.

Will W@wweldon.bsky.social

There should be an earnest call to pack the courts by Dem leadership. It should be a thought out campaign to explain to the American people why it’s necessary.

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I’ve suggested returning to 2/circuit (originals used for a good) and have every justice serve 18 years and they then cycle into their circuit. Each case heard by random 9 would still be an improvement. Chief would be meaningless, yes?

I initially thought “But how do you resolve disagreements on principle between these panels?”, but then answered my own question: amend federal law and/or the constitution to make that particular issue completely unambiguous, and remove any judges who still disagree after that.

It still doesn't address that Conservatives have a dedicated pipeline churning out incredibly reactionary fundamentalists. Diminish the position and their spectrum turns into Clarence Thomas to Aileen Cannon, cause "c'mon, it's one judge out of 100. Big whoop."

Given Rs seemingly unlimited money to throw at case after case until they achieve their desired result and a real risk of them jackpotting 5-9 of them on any case from a 50-70 person whackadoo pool* they'd be able to gin up it'd almost be worse than now.

Like, I agree the court needs to be expanded, but if it comes with randomization there would need to be some sort of last ditch nullification/redo mechanism, but most importantly, expansion or not, there has to be a removal mechanism that stands a chance of actually being used.

Interesting... W/ 100, maybe they could all also be sitting members of lower courts? How could overturning itself be handled so it wasn't flip flopping with random selection? Maybe larger en banc panels could review/appeal decisions that over turned precedent? 🤔

While we're talking about reforms, we need about 10-12 new amendments just to harden the democracy from bad actors. And a bunch more to fill the gaps in civil rights/liberties not even imagined 250 years ago.

we don’t have enough judges already. your plan would make it worse. and supreme court is a higher level of achievement and, when democrats are in charge, scholarship and jurisprudence there’s no reason we shouldn’t have 100 SCJs.

What we’re learning this year is that any rule, system or law can simply be undone by Republicans if/when they regain power. Which doesn’t mean packing the Court is bad necessarily, it just means we have to *do the hard part first*. Win elections, fill those seats, and HOLD those seats.

It's definitely time to unrig this court. It seems no matter how many decades conservatives control it, they will never be conservative enough for the times. They will never be MAGA enough, so they will continue to move to the extreme right until we get another FDR type gang buster.

I think that would not work because it would destroy stare decisis. Everything would be decided by the random draw of judges for a given case, and everyone would know it. The result would be a breakdown of consistent rules for law; every case appealed to SCOTUS to see which panel it gets.

I don't see why it would ruin stare decisis at all. It should still hold as it does (in theory!) now in which a previous court (which may have been made up by 9 different justices) ruled differently. Stare decisis is about The Court itself, not the specific Justices.

As the current court demonstrates, courts are willing to overturn previous decisions (or just ignore them) sometimes. Justices would be FAR more willing to do so if they believe that the decision they disagree with was decided by random draw (and this time there's a better draw).

I still don't see why it would be any different. We don't seem to have that issue in Circuit Courts which are also random draw. They tend to take precedent seriously. Why would this be different?

But Manchin & Welch's proposal to serve 18 years, with 2 justices appointed during each presidential term (plus replacements to fill out a term) seems quite viable to me.

In addition to expansion, I’d also love to see division into different specializations. One arm only hears criminal procedure cases, one arm only hears administrative, etc. No attorney practices across all these disciplines, why should a judge?