We need a 15-justice Supreme Court..and we CAN do it.

[SoCalDem]

By republicans loading the court with right wing "young 'uns", the only sane way to re-establish sanity is to have congress increase the number to 15.

A democratic White House and a congress in '08 with substantially more democrats in it is the PRIME time to make the switch to a bigger court.

Congress can decide how many there are..

NINE is not a "sacred" number, and since the court takes on fewer and fewer cases every session, there is an argument to be made for how "overworked" they must be. A larger number could be the perfect solution :)

Imagine a dem president and a safely dem senate who could appoint FIVE (in oneterm) new justices.. Suddenly those older ones migth just decide it was safe to finally retire, and before you could say.. abbracadabra, the SCOTUS could have a whole new balance..

[wakeme2008]

1. It is funny that the Repugs did not try this during * first term when

* had good approval numbers...

[SoCalDem]

2. He must have been just too busy doing all the other stuff

and thought he'd get around to it later:)

[AndyA]

12. Well, we know Bush was eating Pretzels during his first term.

And he had trouble with that act.

So, don't you think you're setting the standards a bit too high for him to eat and dictate at the same time?

:rofl:

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. Perhaps they remembered what happend with Roosevelt

when he tried to increase the number of judges on the SC?

It nearly cost FDR his presidency.

[mth44sc]

3. FDR

Ya might want to look up what happened to FDR when he tried that...

http://www.hpol.org/fdr/chat/

[originalpckelly]

4. Yeah, right. This has been tried before and it is unconstitutional to pack a court...

just to approve of your programs. We need to uphold the rule of law. This is the exact opposite of that. The fact that we have to deal with conservative justices is a fact of our system at this time. When we bend the law to suit our needs, then the rule of law is no more.

[SoCalDem]

8. If there's a "need' for more justices, how could it be called packing?

They review very few cases every year, and due to the ages of so many of them, there's a case to be made that they are not up to it these days.

We are a country with almost 400 million people, and surely our supreme court needs more than 9 old men... well... 5 old men, 1 older woman, and 3 not-so-old-men..

[originalpckelly]

11. We're still 100 million shy of 400 million...

and this isn't a good argument. I know what's going on here, and I think it's the absolute worst thing to do. I'm actually quite ashamed that someone on my side would try this.

[mondo joe]

13. How would increasing thwe number of justices pick up the pace exactly?

Thank you.

[SoCalDem]

16. With a larger staff, perhaps they would feel obligated to take on more cases?

I just think that there should be more than 9.

of course, I also think that they should be term-limited too:)

i think a justice should be NO younger than 60 and should be "re-confirmed" at 75. That would set a 15 year term max (without a re-confirmation)..

Why 60?

Assuming that someone makes it through law school ay age 25, that would give them plenty of time to build a career, raise their families, and to have a vivid "paper trail" of their legal life. I know it's not mandatory to BE a lawyer in order to serve on the court, but that would allow just about anyone's career to flourish and be easily researched.

At 60, people are usually still vibrant, healthy people, and could easily handle 15 more years of service, if they chose to,.

This would eliminate the "ruling from the grave" that happens now..

[mondo joe]

17. A larger STAFF? Or a bigger COURT?

A bigger court still has to go through all the motions of hearing a case and deliberating, whether there are 9 or 19 justices.

[WI_DEM]

5. FDR tried it after his landslide re-election in '36 with huge democratic majorities

in the congress and couldn't get the country to support the idea (or congress). But historically the court has changed it's numbers at different times, but I think the precedent is not going to allow it to happen.

[Ignacio Upton]

9. There hasn't been a change in size since 1869

At one time was court even had 10 justices.

[More Than A Feeling]

10. One wonders what might have happened if Joe Robinson, the senate majority leader hadn't died

Supposedly, Robinson was the only person who could have sold the court-packing scheme.

[mondo joe]

6. Then the next time the Repubs are in power they can increase it to 23.

[Ignacio Upton]

7. 11 is more realistic

Because Chimp has packed the SCOTUS with relatively young justices (Roberts and Alito, assuming they stay in good health, could possibly serve for more than a quarter century!) we have to look at alternatives. Expanding the SCOTUS is our best bet, but it will be hard to do. Not even FDR was able to this...although he shouldn't have said he would appoint an additional justice based on age. If we expand the SCOTUS, it should come in addition to expanding lower level courts, and we should argue that the courts need relief from their cases.

[TahitiNut]

14. It'd be politically easier to impeach Scalia and/or Thomas.

The Senate would have to confirm any appointment to the Supreme Court, and a snowball would have a greater chance in hell than that they'd confirm any additional Justices. It'd be easier (and FAR from 'easy') to draft articles of impeachment against Thomas and/or Scalia and have him removed by the Senate.

[Pirate Smile]

15. When FDR tried it the Democratic Chairman of the Judiciary Committee

fought him on it which essentially killed its chances of passing.

Republicans might do it because congressional Republicans have shown they will do whatever a Republican White House wants but Democrats .... not so much.


You know that filibuster provision is kind of a pain in the ass for us now BUT the Democrats wont get rid of it like the Republicans wanted to - we're just funny that way.

Just like Harry Truman investigated the pentagon and contractors, etc. during World War II - something, of course, Republicans showed they wont do when they had a War and a Republican President.