Robert ReichThe Supreme Court is off the rails. Some ideas for reform:
1) Enact term limits
2) Enforce ethics standards
3) Require financial disclosures
4) Expand the court
5) Rotate justices
Enough is enough.
Atanae@rbreich Not that you’re wrong, but how? Constitutionally, the only thing you can do is expand the Court. The rest would require Amendments, and those will never pass. Give me a viable path forward, and I’m all ears.
darkpoole@atanae @rbreich Constitutionally, Congress has almost complete control over the organization of the Supreme Court. The list of things Congress CAN'T do is quite short. Hard term limits are out, but "soft" term limits are doable. Congress can't change SCOTUS's original jurisdiction, or cut judicial salaries. They can't cut the President out of the appointment process.
Otherwise, they have a LOT of power to regulate SCOTUS and the federal judicial process as a whole.
transcendentape@darkpoole @atanae @rbreich What Congress are you referring to in carrying out this fantasy? The Republican majority House or the Democratic majority by one that was just tossed by an attention seeker from Arizona.
If your proposal for a solution to a problem includes absolutely ignoring the situation involved, then I’d argue your proposal needs a reworking.
@transcendentape @atanae @rbreich
It's neither a "fantasy" or a "proposal." It's simply a statement of constitutional law: Congress has broad power to extensively overhaul the Supreme Court if a majority of both Houses concur and the President signs off on it. Whether Congress does so or not is up to them.
I don't expect the current Congress to do anything useful on any front. But there's an election in 19 months. We'll see what happens after that.