I Think it's Time to Increase the Court From 9 to 15 Members

It wouldn't be the first time it was done. The number is not set by the Constitution.

It would sure be nice for Obama to appoint 6 new, young, LIBERAL justices next year. And maybe some of our older liberal justices would want to retire so he can appoint even more.

It could shift the court way to the left for a long long time.

Seven years ago I would've been against it because, while it may not be against the rules, it certainly seems like tweaking the rules unfairly.

The intervening years have proven to me that law is meaningless in this country, and great wealth observes no rules whatsoever in it's constant push for MORE. I think we need to take a similar stance.

Each new president would want to increase the size of the court and before we know it there will be 100+ justices.

Size of the Court:

The United States Constitution does not specify the size of the Supreme Court; instead, Congress has the power to fix the number of Justices. Originally, the total number of Justices was set at six by the Judiciary Act of 1789. As the country grew geographically, the number of Justices steadily increased to correspond with the growing number of judicial circuits. The court was expanded to seven members in 1807, nine in 1837 and ten in 1863. In 1866, however, Congress wished to deny President Andrew Johnson any Supreme Court appointments, and therefore passed the Judicial Circuits Act, which provided that the next three Justices to retire would not be replaced; thus, the size of the Court would eventually reach seven by attrition. Consequently, one seat was removed in 1866 and a second in 1867. In the Circuit Judges Act of 1869, the number of Justices was again set at nine (the Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices), where it has remained ever since. President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to expand the Court (see Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937); his plan would have allowed the President to appoint one new, additional justice for every justice who reached the age of seventy but did not retire from the bench, until the Court reached a maximum size of fifteen justices. Ostensibly, this was to ease the burdens of the docket on the elderly judges, but it was widely believed that the President's actual purpose was to add Justices who would favor his New Deal policies, which had been regularly ruled unconstitutional by the Court. This plan, referred to often as the Court Packing Plan, failed in Congress. The Court, however, moved from its opposition to Roosevelt's New Deal programs, rendering the President's effort moot. In any case, Roosevelt's long tenure in the White House allowed him to appoint eight Justices to the Supreme Court (second only to George Washington) and promote one Associate Justice to Chief Justice.<7>

the Judiciary Reorganization Bill was doomed before it was introduced. It probably wouldn't go far today, either.

They use the worst possible linguistic spin, "packing" the Court. I guess it's mostly older peeps but there are still quite a few of 'em around.

n/t