Certain members of SCOTUS, you know, the ones bought with fancy vacations, are living in fear of a code of conduct and an expanded court that will remove most of their value. I look forward to the day that Clarence Thomas just isn't worth the price of an expensive trip to the Caribbean.
It sounds like you are down for expanding? Where are we on that?
I saw a few weeks ago where a Republican Congressman said Kamala had said she would expand the court and I couldn't find that it was true. I know some bills have floated out, but you really can't get too excited about something just because a bill gets to the House of Representatives. A lot of ideas get thrown around there, but few stick. I expect you need a 60-40 Senate to make this happen and that isn't happening.
The whole idea of it is a brain-tickler to me. My whole life and long before there has been a strong degree of angst about who would get to replace justices when it has always been possible to just outvote them. But no one has done it in a long, long time. I have had a longstanding impression that FDR had expanded it up to 12, but now that I look for the details, he didn't. He wanted to, but he couldn't manage it. It hasn't been done since the 19th century. Leaving that precedent in place feels like it has some value. In spite of Trump's great luck, I think the majority of people would still view it as a political trick and that in itself could cost the midterms or the next White House, but further when you normalize a political trick you have to do it knowing that you're going to hand the reins to the other party before too long. So Kamala gets it up to 13 for a 7-6 majority. She is probably succeeded by a Republican in 4 or 8 years. Does he take it to 15 to get an 8-7? There's no Constitutional limit on how high it can go, but how many sounds crazy? Honestly, 9 is already a LOT of cooks in the kitchen.
I know if they could manage it, they could get an awful lot done before the pendulum would swing the other way, but it wouldn't be very permanent. And what we're playing with is the independence of the judicial branch. It was not intended to be changeable with every new Congress or President. If Kamala gets both houses, I think a less bold, but still constructive move might be impeaching Clarence Thomas.