It's probably useful to distinguish between the downsides of having a larger Court and the downsides of increasing the size of the Court.

I am not especially skeptical about the abstract idea of a larger court. I don't think nine is any sort of magic number. And I see no reason why a court of last resort could not rely on a panel system.

The downsides of increasing the size of the court are obvious to me. Those downsides are outweighed by the upsides only if you have a very pessimistic view of where we are right now. As I have said, a very pessimistic view of where we are right now is certainly defensible.

I think some of the other Federal Courts show a major downside to the panel system- mainly, obtaining a different result than an en banc opinion. Conceptually, seeing such a change as an absolute good with no downside is either extremely naive or lacking any foresight. While I agree that there is no magical number of justices and every system can be improved, simply packing the court with a number of justices to achieve desired results seem fraught with issues when you lose power and become the minority view holder.

I can only imagine if the court was 6-3 in favor of the democrats and the GOP won and said were gonna increase the size of the supreme court. The outrage would be as loud on the left

I am curious. Why not explain at least minimally your view. Flesh it out and explain why you see one as better and the other worse.
if you don't provide any thing then the counter is simply 'using the panel option is superior as it does not have downside of the en banc system. Conceptually thinking otherwise is just naïve or lacking foresight.

I am quite curious about this so i hope you flesh it out.

Of course. Both sides want to have and hold a tipped balance of power. That is why each death and nomination is treated like a lottery win and life and death affair now.

That would not be the case if you had 15 or 20 judges. It naturally and indisputably becomes less relevant to get a single vote the more justices there are.

I said that I didn't see any reason why a court of last resort could not rely on a panel system. I didn't say that a panel system was perfect. I didn't say that a panel was an absolute good with no downside. You obviously lose a degree of consistency with a panel system.

in the future, i think this will be cited as the downfall of the united states. citizens united.

You seem to like one size fit all answers. I find for complex issues those answers don't usually work and have unintended consequences. I will point you to some articles that discuss the issues the Federal Courts have with panel options but they mostly conclude the panel system is not the absolute perfect system with no downside when I have my computer.

Off the top of my head, a privacy or an abortion issue could end up being decided by a conservatively slanted panel of judges, picked randomly, that does not adequately reflect viewpoints of the SC and we get more severe holdings than what we may get now. Or the states try taking more shots at the SC because of the possibility of getting a biased panel. Undoing these decisions may be harder. Decisions could be the law of the land for months and then flip flop. if a 6-3 decision is treated poorly, how does a 11-10 decision get viewed. Flat out stalemates on getting issues to the court to be decided or lengthy delays on time sensitive issues simply because of the largeness of the entity.

And the amount of crying when the other side takes over and does the same.....

Let's say there is a 25-member SC, and over time it becomes 16-9 conservative. It could take several decades to flip the court to 13-12 liberal. A flip of four seats would be required. 16-9 is equivalent to 8-1 in terms of flipping the court ideologically.

any additional judges should be accompanied by common sense term limits.

one 18 yr non-renewable term with the current sized court rotating every 2 years is such a mind numbingly obvious solution that also keeps the court just as "politically isolated" as they thought the existing no limit did

no politicians want to really broach the subject of term limits for anything, however. because the idea would be so popular and obvious that they are likely to argue themselves out of the easy grift that are these 30-40 yr political "careers".. 18 yr total term limits for the house and senate should also be obvious.

Nope than when your in power you add 9 more It never ends

I forgot that the 25 will quickly become 125.

The above makes perfect sense.

Which is why it'll never happen!

It doesn't really matter too much. It will already take decades, if ever, to change the ideological composition. As long as the justices can control when they retire and the presidency and the senate align on a regular basis, which they kind of do, then ideological justices will always retire when the presidency and senate align. You might have a one off situation, Scalia dying too soon of being fat, but as long as the senate and presidency aren't aligned in the opposing party it's a null result. The out of power senator can filibuster until they come back into power.

Justice Ginsberg apparently didn't get your memo. And she got a lot of heat for not retiring.

Well sure. No system is perfect because... 'humans'. The current SC is deeply flawed as we currently see and I don't need to search articles to expose those flaws as they are self evident. I am not disagreeing there would be some challenges with a panel SC, in particular if a Chief Justice with an agenda had a hold of it. But I think, if you assume generally the jurists will not purposely co-opt the SC panel system it could fix all the problems that ail it currently. If you have a Chief Justice intent on coopting it then it won't really matter what type of court you have.

So for example I think Chief justice Roberts is an honest actor. Is he right leaning, yes, which is fine. I don't think he tries to coerce the court.

The Federalist society and GOP see a clear path to over ride Roberts more neutral and fair position. It is not at all hard (1 single jurist) who they vet and get assurances from prior on their positions and help coach to get thru thru the nomination process. You just have to find those hungry enough for power they will lie and say whatever they need to, to get thru the process.

Play a game with me lozen and I will show you how silly your position is.

I am Chief Justice interested in fair hearings.

I have 25 justices and when I panel them for a hearing, I randomly select 4 from Dem and 4 from GOP nominees and the last one at random.


Explain to me precisely how you adding 9 and then the Dems adding 9 and then you adding 15 IN ANY WAY impacts who I put out to hear the cases and rule and how as Chief justice I cannot demonstrate to you INSTANTLY you are wasting your time thinking it has any impact to keep packing the court.

Talk me thru it as so many people seem to be so stuck on this as a flaw and I don't get it. It seems to me like so many people have no access to logic or problem solving as this is the biggest nothing burger possible for a Chief justice who has numbers to choose from, and the more the better.

You are assuming that the Chief Justice thinks that "fair" means "ideologically balanced." Why is that a fair assumption right now? Why is it a fair assumption if we are looking 25 years in the future?

Sure.

My position is that if a Chief Justice has a system he has very little control over now in that regard. The GOP has found a way to game it and it is working and Roberts appeals to stay away from the more political side of thought is failing.

He has little to no control over it.

I am saying, if indeed he does (or any future Chief justice does) want to ensure balance or strive for balance then packing the court empowers that.


If he does not then neither system is protection.

So the status quo has negatives even when the CHief Justice would work to not have them that cannot be overcome (GOP proving how 1 vote can tip it) whereas the packed court does not have that.

Both however do require good intent from the CHief justice, ...one (packing the court) just empowers that good intent.

How did they game the system by winning an election and legally appointing Supreme Court justices.

You may argue that denying Obama his selection was gaming the system

They denied Obama his pick and raced thru Barrett in a way they would never approve the Dem's doing and was against all prior precedent and norms.

That was a 2 Justice swing via gaming.

Stevens, O'Conner and Ginsberg were all pushed through in less than 6 weeks in the 70-80s

You do need to expand on deep flaws of the SC, it just seems like we don't like their current members and some of their recent decisions.


Another absolutism - No solution will fix all the current problems.

Change the Chief Justice to Kavanaugh and see how much anyone likes your selection process.

It is not the speed she went thru that is the problem. It is that Mitch said very specifically Obama's pick would not be done so close to an election as a lame duck President should not have that choice and the people should have that say via the NEXT election and the POTUS they choose. He then flipped that position on its head to confirm Barrett even though, in every way it was worse timing than Obama's pick.