Stacking the Court

Professor Jean Edward Smith has an op-ed in today's New York Times called Stacking the Court. "When a majority of Supreme Court justices adopt a manifestly ideological agenda, it plunges the court into the vortex of American politics. If the Roberts court has entered voluntarily what Justice Felix Frankfurter once called the 'political thicket,' it may require a political solution to set it straight." He suggests that a Democratic president and Congress might add justices to the court to correct the current 5 man conservative majority.

He points out that the size of the US Supreme Court is not set in the Constitution but is set by a majority vote of Congress (well in today's climate you need 60 in the Senate and that means nothing gets done). He then lists the various times in history the size of the court has been changed and he points out the political reasons for doing so. He also glosses over the fact that the court has had 9 justices since 1869 and that FDR's attempt to stack the court is one of his least appealing actions. "Still, there is nothing sacrosanct about having nine justices on the Supreme Court. Roosevelt’s 1937 chicanery has given court-packing a bad name, but it is a hallowed American political tradition participated in by Republicans and Democrats alike."

Moron.

I'm sorry but changing the ground rules won't solve anything. The next time there's a change of power they'll just change something else in their favor. If the country doesn't want conservative justices, we should elect officials that won't appoint them. If we're not happy with the decisions of the court, we should amend the Constitution to more accurately reflex our wishes. And if we're not willing to do those things, too bad for us. Now if only politicians didn't lie, journalists actually reported the facts, money was removed from politics, and people were educated enough to make intelligent decisions we'd be ok.