MicroWaveJustice Alito says Congress lacks the power to impose an ethics code on the Supreme Court
GrayThis is genuinely quite a scary belief coming from a SCOTUS justice. In effect he is saying that the SCOTUS is the only institution in the US that is completely untouchable by legislation. That elevates the SCOTUS to a level beyond any other government position. Effectively our benevolent overlords. Given how low of approval ratings that the SCOTUS has, their recent series of ideological activist decisions, and the fact that they aren’t even elected positions, I find myself increasingly in support of a fundamental redefinition of the SCOTUS as we know it. I don’t see why we shouldn’t stack the SCOTUS when they’ve fundamentally abandoned their duty to any level of fairness or responsibility for the citizens of the US.
moosepuggleI like the idea of terms being twenty years and judges being selected randomly from existing sitting judges in lower courts. Takes all the air out of the fight of Congress approving SCOTUS judges.
I kind of like that idea, except I think it’s less likely to create a non-partisan court and more likely to create a randomly partisan court. Like, odds are that five of the justices would still have a partisan lean. Is that fair to the American people? Also, when Republicans block a president from having their judicial nominations confirmed, then it becomes even more like for conservative justices to make it to the SCOTUS. Same for if Dems blocked. It would incentize obstruction.
I’ve felt that we should simply have the SCOTUS be elected like we do in many states. Why shouldn’t the people have a direct say in who makes the greatest decisions about our constitution? It was one thing when the court was ostensibly non-partisan, but at this point if it’s going to be partisan either way, we should just make it elected.
Alternatively, we could bake the partisanship into the court. Make the court have an even number, then reward an equal number of justices to the major parties (parties receiving more than x% of the vote in presidential elections or something like that). If libertarians or greens ever get more popular, we can have the court autoadjust to split between more parties. That’s my hairbrained idea that would probably be too messy to be worth it.