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If it was that simple, the current administration would've gotten rid of the Supreme Court. It's not that simple, for a reason. To abolish the Supreme Court,

If it was that simple, the current administration would've gotten rid of the Supreme Court. It's not that simple, for a reason. To abolish the Supreme Court, the Constitution itself would need to be changed. This requires a constitutional amendment, which requires much more than simply 60 senators and a majority in the house. It's almost as if our country wasn't founded by complete morons - who had the insight to figure out that at some point in the future, it would be possible for morons to get a simple majority. You can expand the supreme court with 60 senators - but that's only happened a handful of times (13 - 4 of which happened under FDR, 5 of which happened from 59-69, so 4 times outside of that, and only once since 79 after the 2008 meltdown).

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> If it was that simple, the current administration would've gotten rid of the Supreme Court Remember the nuclear option [1]? That was the Senate removing the 60% rule for judicial appointments. ("Originally, the Senate's rules did not provide for a procedure for the Senate to vote to end debate on a question so that it could be voted on, which opened the door to filibusters. In 1917, the Senate introduced a procedure to allow for ending debate (invoking cloture) with a two-thirds majority, later reduced in 1975 to three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn (60 if there is no more than one vacancy).") > To abolish the Supreme Court, the Constitution itself would need to be changed To abolish, yes. To restructure, no. Again, § 1 of Article III and the Appointments Clause are everything the Constitution has to say about the supreme Court. > You can expand the supreme court with 60 senators You can expand it with 50. Nothing in the Constitution says anything about 60 Senators--the only time it requires a supermajority is in § 3 of Article I in respect of impeachments [2]. Senate rules say 60 Senators. A simple majority can amend the Senate's rules. > You can expand the supreme court with 60 senators - but that's only happened a handful of times (13 - 4 of which happened under FDR, 5 of which happened from 59-69, so 4 times outside of that, and only once since 79 after the 2008 meltdown) Nothing here is correct. SCOTUS was expanded five times: 1801, undone in 1802, 1807, 1837 and 1863; then thinned in 1866 and 1867; then expanded again in 1869 [3]. FDR threatened to expand the court, but didn't. Nothing happened in 1979 or 2008. Most of those votes did not occur with a supermajority (we literally don't even have the vote counts for many of them). None of them required 60 votes because during all of them the Senate had fewer than 100 members. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option [2] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Size_of_the_court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_St...
- ModernMech 1y ago
  I actually really like the idea of having a supreme court of 50 justices where 9 are selected randomly for each case. There's obvious problems with this but I don't see how it's obviously worse than what we have now... which is awful.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
    A supreme Court with 50 partisan hacks, where no decision means anything, because you just continuously roll the dice until you get the ruling you want.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > you just continuously roll the dice until you get the ruling you want Judges are already randomly assigned to cases in practically every jurisdiction. You don't get to re-roll. If you mean continuously re-rolling issues, that problem is preserved whether we choose by lot or by appointment. The difference is choosing by lot out of a large group makes it more difficult to stack.
      - pseudalopex 1y ago
        Inconsistency from random assignments at lower levels is mitigated by all judges participating at higher levels.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > actually really like the idea of having a supreme court of 50 justices where 9 are selected randomly for each case Simpler: just use the appelate bench's 179 judges [1]. They become the "Judges of the supreme Court" [2]. (The only time a chief Justice is mentioned in the Constitution is when it pertains to impeachment (Art. 1 § 3). That could just be defined by statute as the longest-serving circuit judge.) Every case is assigned 9 random judges. They decide whether to hear the case. If they pass, precedent stands. If not, they hear the case and write an opinion. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_circuit_judges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_... [2] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C2-3-1/ALDE_00013092/%5B'Article',%20'I,',%20'Section',%20'3d',%20'Cl.',%20'6'%5D https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C2-3...

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> If it was that simple, the current administration would've gotten rid of the Supreme Court Remember the nuclear option [1]? That was the Senate removing the 60% rule for judicial appointments. ("Originally, the Senate's rules did not provide for a procedure for the Senate to vote to end debate on a question so that it could be voted on, which opened the door to filibusters. In 1917, the Senate introduced a procedure to allow for ending debate (invoking cloture) with a two-thirds majority, later reduced in 1975 to three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn (60 if there is no more than one vacancy).") > To abolish the Supreme Court, the Constitution itself would need to be changed To abolish, yes. To restructure, no. Again, § 1 of Article III and the Appointments Clause are everything the Constitution has to say about the supreme Court. > You can expand the supreme court with 60 senators You can expand it with 50. Nothing in the Constitution says anything about 60 Senators--the only time it requires a supermajority is in § 3 of Article I in respect of impeachments [2]. Senate rules say 60 Senators. A simple majority can amend the Senate's rules. > You can expand the supreme court with 60 senators - but that's only happened a handful of times (13 - 4 of which happened under FDR, 5 of which happened from 59-69, so 4 times outside of that, and only once since 79 after the 2008 meltdown) Nothing here is correct. SCOTUS was expanded five times: 1801, undone in 1802, 1807, 1837 and 1863; then thinned in 1866 and 1867; then expanded again in 1869 [3]. FDR threatened to expand the court, but didn't. Nothing happened in 1979 or 2008. Most of those votes did not occur with a supermajority (we literally don't even have the vote counts for many of them). None of them required 60 votes because during all of them the Senate had fewer than 100 members. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option [2] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Size_of_the_court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_St...

ModernMech 1y ago
I actually really like the idea of having a supreme court of 50 justices where 9 are selected randomly for each case. There's obvious problems with this but I don't see how it's obviously worse than what we have now... which is awful.
- onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
  A supreme Court with 50 partisan hacks, where no decision means anything, because you just continuously roll the dice until you get the ruling you want.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > you just continuously roll the dice until you get the ruling you want Judges are already randomly assigned to cases in practically every jurisdiction. You don't get to re-roll. If you mean continuously re-rolling issues, that problem is preserved whether we choose by lot or by appointment. The difference is choosing by lot out of a large group makes it more difficult to stack.
    - pseudalopex 1y ago
      Inconsistency from random assignments at lower levels is mitigated by all judges participating at higher levels.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > actually really like the idea of having a supreme court of 50 justices where 9 are selected randomly for each case Simpler: just use the appelate bench's 179 judges [1]. They become the "Judges of the supreme Court" [2]. (The only time a chief Justice is mentioned in the Constitution is when it pertains to impeachment (Art. 1 § 3). That could just be defined by statute as the longest-serving circuit judge.) Every case is assigned 9 random judges. They decide whether to hear the case. If they pass, precedent stands. If not, they hear the case and write an opinion. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_circuit_judges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_... [2] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C2-3-1/ALDE_00013092/%5B'Article',%20'I,',%20'Section',%20'3d',%20'Cl.',%20'6'%5D https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C2-3...