Should government push for legislation that would increase the US Supreme Court to 11 justices?

The US Constitution does not limit the number of justices on the bench.

An act of congress, passed by simple majorities and signed into law by the President can increase the court to any size.

It is said to have swayed Justice Owen roberts to be more sympathetic toward the New Deal.

Just sayin.

increased the number and then had to take some back off, as it was found to be unconstitutional.

I may be wrong but I think I studied that in history.

At no point is the composition of the Supreme Court explicitly specified; Congress, which is assigned general power over the federal judiciary, has traditionally been responsible for controlling the Court's size.

What happened in 1937 is that FDR made his proposal to an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, and they rejected it. It was a political disaster, which damaged the Democrats in the 1938 elections and was a crucial contributor to the formation of a bipartisan conservative anti-New Deal coalition which had much power in Congress for decades thereafter.

If the number of justices can be increased by an act of congress, can it be reduced the same way? And if this is the case who gets to decide which justices have to go?

I have my own ideas about which four justices I'd get rid of.

At least until a Supreme Court Justice dies or resigns.

I don't believe that there is any way, short of impeachment, to remove a sitting supreme court justice.

and I'd love to pack the court with LIBERAL judges that could conceivably roll back some of the recent horror stories (like the Kelo case) and the erosion of civil liberties and the growth of corporatism.

I doubt that will happen. But, if the same suggestion came up in the Bush administration, I would have fought it tooth and nail for obvious reasons.

when and if the repukes ever capture power again... they would increase it to 17 or whatever, just to pack it their way.

From a certain perspective, it is a straight-up "strict construction" issue: can "public use" be made flexible enough to encompass private enterprise-led economic development?

I would have almost never thought that I would ever find myself in agreement with those guys about anything. But in this case I am.
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I completely agree with Sandra Day O'Connors dissent:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/23/AR2005062300783.html
{Stevens's opinion provoked a strongly worded dissent from Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who wrote that the ruling favors the most powerful and influential in society and leaves small property owners little recourse. Now, she wrote, the "specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."}
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The apologists for the ruling say that it leaves the rules for eminent domain under the control of the states who can craft their own laws that specifically forbid eminent domain to be used for the benefit of private developers over the small guy. The problem with that being that state legislatures are EVEN MORE prone to being in the pockets of the bigs guys and the law is subject to the whims of whatever legislature is in session. There is no overarching protection anymore from the federal government. The decision sickens me. The fact that it was reached by the liberals on the court sickens me even more.

As far as the question of what "public use" constitutes, I lean toward the conclusion that the Court decided rightly. It is hard for me to see why the mere issue of legal ownership should make a difference: the point (in theory) of building a publicly-owned road is to contribute to the general welfare, and so is the point of some "economic development" program. I'm not sure what principled conceptual distinction could be made here; it is a different case if we are dealing with a matter of transferring one person's property to another for the sake of benefiting the second party (as opposed to the public as a whole), but that was not at issue in Kelo.

Politically, as your objection highlights, it is a more difficult question to call. My general inclination is to not be a very staunch defender of private property rights, against the demands of broad social benefit. It seems to me perverse for society to pay large costs simply at the whim of a few stubborn individuals who are in the way. But there is no question but that the eminent domain power, especially as expanded by Kelo, has been abused against the politically powerless for the benefit of the politically influential.

In any case, we are drifting a bit from the topic. The issue, however, does raise one side-point that is somewgar relevant: the judges we appoint as "liberals" might not always decide the way we want them to. Judges are notorious for breaking with the people who appointed them; it is worth recalling that several of the Court liberals are Republican appointees.

But s/he, of course, would still have to do the advice and consent thing.

I think when people finally come to realize what the Republican political system really is, and that members of the Party are not quite U.S. citizens, this might be the way to go.

We may just have to wait this one out; it is the consequence of forty years of conservative backlash against 1960s judicial liberalism, and long-term developments like that tend to be too entrenched to simply do away with.

quite some time ago.

But keeping the appointment power limited ensures that the Court can exercise at least some judicial independence: it means that the government cannot simply undo the courts whenever they go against it.

Thats my question.. Why wait?

It is not worth it. Indeed, in some sense it would be the ultimate victory for the conservatives, because it would solidify the authority of the state over individual liberty.

The expansion of the rights contained in the Fourteenth Amendment's "liberty" clause, much decried by conservatives, would long have been court-packed away under this scheme.

The political capital needed to be expended to do that would sap strength away from areas where we really need it.