DWT, from two days ago:
Midnight Meme Of The Day! Roberts' 9 Seats Of Tyranny
by Noah
Yeah, it would be damn hard to put that trash in the proper receptacle now. And that's not even considering the lack of will on the part of a weenie like Schumer even if a realistic means were now available. The horse has left the barn and blown the rusty hinges off the door on the way. Soon Alito, Thomas, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Clusterphuck Team Captain Roberts will be handing out promotional wire hangers to visiting guests who come to take the tour. Alito's a crazy old fart who dreams of flogging and burning non-existent witches. Thomas sits in his office thumbing through sticky old porn mags. Kavanaugh drinks vast quantities of beer. Lordy, who knows what the other 3 of the Nazi 6 are doing in their spare time. Just trying to think up new ways to gain a legacy of tearing the country to shreds, I suppose.
But do we really need to be wedded to the number 9? The idea of 9 Supreme Court justices took hold back in the 19th century where republicans like to live. [...] Only one number has not changed since the 19th century, i.e. the number of people sitting on the Supreme Court. We are now well into the 21st century. 9 is the most antiquated number in our farcical judicial system. Is there not a budget for 4 more chairs, or do we have to wait 2 more centuries before we get 13 justices to match the number of Courts of Appeals?
But sadly Joe Biden would now be picking four additions, and that congers sad aspects. And Schumer, Manchin and Sinema raise little hope while McConnell and Graham would vote along with Minnesota's non-dynamic duo of Senators.
Mush and not progress would likely be the addition. Yet mush would at least temper the likes of what's there now. The present mush in the White House does trump Trump. There is that tiny truth to clutch onto. And have you noticed, the MAGA hat huckster never has been willing or able to identify a when, as great, to seek again.
The I like Ike 50s? War years? Tea Pot Dome oil scandals? 1913, birth of the creature from Jekyll Island? The Dust Bowl? Dead Kennedys? Vietnam?
The Court was something during the Warren years. Now it is the court. Earning lower case status. The roberts court? No, the Leonard Leo court. Tell it like it is.
____________UPDATE____________
DWT again, with upbeat thinking, presently likely to go nowhere, but offering long term promise - DWT's title: Reforming The Supreme Court? Step One Is Now Underway
The item discusses a term limit and term cycling idea, in bill form, which has much merit conceptually and as a practically needed reform step now, if feasible.
https://hankjohnson.house.gov/sites/hankjohnson.house.gov/files/documents/SCOTUS_TERMS_xml.pdf
That 3p item, which readers should check for its details, has a money quote:
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act of 2022’’.
"Modernization" is a great euphemism for "reform." DWT text:
Yesterday, House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Hank Johnson (D-GA), and 4 senior members of the committee— David Cicilline (D-RI), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Karen Bass (D-CA), Steve Cohen (D-TN)— plus Ro Khanna (D-CA) from the Oversight and Reform Committee introduced a bill, [...] to start the reform process of the Supreme Court. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is introducing the same bill in the Senate.
This afternoon, Khanna told me that "Six extremist justices trying to undermine our democracy and fundamental freedoms shouldn’t get to remain on the court for life. Term limits will help rebalance the court and ensure impartiality. I’m glad to work with Rep. Hank Johnson to create term limits for Supreme Court justices-- a measure that is overwhelmingly popular with the American people. Let's pass this bill and my Supreme Court Term Limits Act." [the below polling data are compelling]
click the image to enlarge and read Polling has shown that two-thirds of Americans support term limits for Supreme Court justices and this bill lays out an orderly process for achieving just that. This is what the bill would do:
• Establish terms of 18 years in regular active service for Supreme Court justices, after which justices who retain the office will assume senior status;
• Establish regular appointments of Supreme Court justices in the first and third years following a presidential election as the sole means of Supreme Court appointments;
• Require current justices to assume senior status in order of length of service on the Court as regularly appointed justices receive their commissions;
• Preserve life tenure by ensuring that senior justices retired from regular active service continue to hold the office of Supreme Court justice, including official duties and compensation; and
• Require the Supreme Court justice who most recently assumed senior status to fill in on the Court if the number of justices in regular active service falls below nine.
The sponsors have said that their bill will “restore legitimacy and independence to the nation’s highest court… Five of the six conservative justices on the bench were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, and they are now racing to impose their out-of-touch agenda on the American people, who do not want it. Term limits are a necessary step toward restoring balance to this radical, unrestrained majority on the court.”
[italics added] Great thinking if it can become a reality. Yet - That final paragraph, at the italicized text, shines onto another needed reform. The electoral college itself would be less a burden if the number of electors accorded each state were equal to House seats, two senators for Wyoming not being the same per population headcount as two for Pennsylvania, so taking senators out of elector counts would be one minor reform.
However, states not in play but likely firmly holding regular voter majorities for one party or the other, have voters with less input than voters in contested states; i.e., a switch to popular vote count as the determination of a Presidential win would eliminate Presidents elected while losing the popular vote.
Electoral college reform would require Constitutional amendment, which would be opposed by enough low-population states to be stymied, given how difficult it is to generate extreme consensus needed to amend the thing.
Ultimately, however, even reform of Presidential elections to make them hinge on popular vote might prove feasible, and it would make one-person-one-vote equivalence the governing fairest norm.
Candidates could no longer concentrate time and money on six or so swing states with huge elector numbers to swing an election, but would have to give time and honor to every single state and its people, equally, if popular vote were to rule.
A downside there, money would even be a bigger determinant of election success if spending nationwide had to be spread out, to equal out.
The deep pockets would still run the propaganda machine, MSM included, so "fairer" would only be a somewhat thing. Representative democracy will always be imperfect, but surely could be reformed to be better in U.S. of A Presidential elections.
Compromises made centuries ago to satisfy thirteen sovereign entities joining into a federation stronger than a prior confederation happened in a different world from us, today. (Not that the wooden heads on the Supreme Court care to give that fact any credence whatsoever. You know the ones meant. "Originalists" they call themselves. "Strict constructionists." We can call them "dissemblers," since they are that above anything else.)