U.S. Supreme Court
Plan of Action
The Bottom Line
To restore faith and trust in the U.S. Supreme Court, there are two things we should do:
END LIFETIME APPOINTMENTS FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICES.
We should end the life-time appointments that Supreme Court justices now enjoy. The new appointments can be ten years, and the terms should be staggered to ensure that the terms expire fairly across presidential terms. (Warning: This is a heavy lift because it requires a constitutional amendment.)
EXPAND THE U.S. SUPREME COURT, BUT NOT FOR THE REASONS DEMOCRATS CLAIM.
The U.S. Supreme Court needs more justices but not, as Democrats claim, to right past wrongs, or to ensure the Court is more “liberal” or “conservative.” In fact, that politically based thinking is exactly the problem.
Simply put, there are not enough justices on the bench. A small Supreme Court has outsized power and tends to be unrepresentative and non-collaborative. If you have any doubt that this is where we are, just look at the partisan warfare that is ignited every time a seat becomes vacant. These nasty political fights are damaging to our country and only serve to divide us even more than we already are, not to mention that appointing like-minded Supreme Court justices becomes the most important decision(s) a president makes.
We should double the number of justices to 18, then add one more because we need an uneven number. The additional justices should be phased in gradually to avoid an advantage for any one political party.
Expanding the Court is much easier to do than enacting term limits because the current number of justices was established by Congress in 1869. Therefore, Congress can simply pass a law to change the size of the Court.