Impeachment (there are certainly grounds) is another option. But it too seems highly unlikely, unless there is an unlikely extreme blue wave in the Senate.
My idea for court reform is to select one judge at random from each of the 1st - 11th circuits every term and let them be the Supreme Court. Only the chief justice would be a permanent member. Grandfather the current associate justices in, but don’t let them be replaced as they die or retire. I believe this can be done without a constitutional amendment if we say that every member of those courts of appeal also serve ex officio on the Supreme Court but their voting rights turn off and on according to the above procedures. That would satisfy the “one Supreme Court” clause, the “good behavior” clause, and the “nominate, advise & consent” clauses.
The advantages I see is first that no particular justice would be so important and indispensable that their partisans would feel like they had to tolerate corruption from them or their hanging on well past the point they could do the job. Second, the composition of the court would tend to change slowly and in accordance with results of presidential elections; there’d be much less incentive for strategic retirement. Plus, no particular ideological faction could be assured of locking in their vision of the law permanently over time, so they’d be less inclined toward rulings like Callais or Shelby or Dobbs or Trump v US. They’d always know that they’d be back on the court of appeals the next year and have to figure out how to apply what they just did. Impact litigators would be careful about which cases they sent up because they wouldn’t know when they initiated the case who would have the ultimate say. But most of all this would be a stable equilibrium; unlike with court packing, republicans wouldn’t need to retaliate the next time they got a trifecta.
Plausible! I'm just feeling now the way I feel about filibuster reform: There's no point in figuring out a good solution when none of the players want one.
Impeachment (there are certainly grounds) is another option. But it too seems highly unlikely, unless there is an unlikely extreme blue wave in the Senate.
I seem to recall that Congress took jurisdiction over Alaska pipeline cases away from the Court.
You may be correct! I remember talk about that one and others.
My idea for court reform is to select one judge at random from each of the 1st - 11th circuits every term and let them be the Supreme Court. Only the chief justice would be a permanent member. Grandfather the current associate justices in, but don’t let them be replaced as they die or retire. I believe this can be done without a constitutional amendment if we say that every member of those courts of appeal also serve ex officio on the Supreme Court but their voting rights turn off and on according to the above procedures. That would satisfy the “one Supreme Court” clause, the “good behavior” clause, and the “nominate, advise & consent” clauses.
The advantages I see is first that no particular justice would be so important and indispensable that their partisans would feel like they had to tolerate corruption from them or their hanging on well past the point they could do the job. Second, the composition of the court would tend to change slowly and in accordance with results of presidential elections; there’d be much less incentive for strategic retirement. Plus, no particular ideological faction could be assured of locking in their vision of the law permanently over time, so they’d be less inclined toward rulings like Callais or Shelby or Dobbs or Trump v US. They’d always know that they’d be back on the court of appeals the next year and have to figure out how to apply what they just did. Impact litigators would be careful about which cases they sent up because they wouldn’t know when they initiated the case who would have the ultimate say. But most of all this would be a stable equilibrium; unlike with court packing, republicans wouldn’t need to retaliate the next time they got a trifecta.
Plausible! I'm just feeling now the way I feel about filibuster reform: There's no point in figuring out a good solution when none of the players want one.
I found it -- Trans Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act of 1973 -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Alaska_Pipeline_Authorization_Act
For the record: That's not one I remembered from when it happened.