Without control of the White House, there is of course only so much Democrats can do with their newfound power. And in the context of the myriad horrors of the first half of President Donald Trump’s second term, talking about what the party “should” do next is roughly analogous to deciding which out-of-control forest fire to fight first: There is not enough water, there are lots of worthy candidates, and all of them are getting worse.
One thing must be true, though: Whatever issues Democratic lawmakers choose to focus on—and, as the 2028 ideas primary gets underway, whatever ambitious ideas Democratic presidential hopefuls choose to support—the party must also have a plan for taking on the Supreme Court, which remains an existential threat to anything Democrats might hope to accomplish. Even if the party is fortunate enough to win a trifecta—the House, the Senate, and the White House—in 2028, things like a Green New Deal and Medicare for All and a new Voting Rights Act do not stand a chance before this six-justice conservative supermajority. Regrettably, what I wrote in 2020 is just as true today: If Congress passes any one of these proposals into law, the only real question is which justice ends up writing the opinion that kills it.
I agree with the rolling term limits, but I’m not sure i understand 29. I can see 9 judges, 18 years limits, replace 1 every 2 years. Alternatively, i think 21 judges, 21 years limits, replace 1 every year.
With 29 seats, are you proposing 29 year term limits, and replace one every year?
Look, I’m definitely not an expert, I just play one on social media posts. I’m not suggesting a complete plan, just a basic framework.
I’m not married to 29, it just needs to be large enough that it couldn’t be skewed too much in any direction. 21 would probably work. There are 13 districts, so maybe there should be three judges from each district, for a total of 39.
I was thinking 18-20 year terms, and mandatory retirement at 75.
There are a LOT of other factors as well, but I’d let the experts decide. My only deal is size. SCOTUS needs to be a lot bigger.
I could see real advantages to having a quite large Supreme Court where the justices who hear and decide a case are a subset of the total and the ones who hear a case are selected at random from the pool. Similar such systems already exist in the circuit courts and it helps to prevent gaming of the system. It’s much harder to game out who you need to appeal to in your arguments when you don’t know for sure who’s going to hear your case. Also makes it possible for them to hear more cases. I think Congress also ought to use their power and tell the Supreme Court that no, actually you DON’T get to say our laws are unconstitutional. That was wrong back when you started doing it and its wrong now.
Who else would determine that laws are unconstitutional? I’m not very familiar with the US legal system.