SCOTUS Rethought
Posted: Tue May 05, 2026 11:20 am
Term limits IS NOT A FIX1. Nor is an age limit2. A small court (5 or 6) as initially established in the first few years of the USA was with a total US population of around 3 million. To even think a similar size (9) would be sufficient for 333 million (+) is foolish. I would suggest a SC of 45 (or even 603) that Congress establishes as reviewing each case in random panels of 3 then on a split going to a random panel of 9 would work much better. Also all decisions must clearly relate to the case and cite what laws/cases they base their decision on. Yes, they can have boilerplate answers to common blunders but anything new needs a clear response. Also lower courts MUST NOT be "required" to follow precedent when they disagree. Look at viewtopic.php?t=43 and its attachment for one crystal clear example of why that is so.
1 Sure, say 18 year terms allows a nice neat cycle of replacements but there is no guarantee of regular party-of-control switches to make it work ideally either.
2 It is not unusual for intellectual acuity to commence decline before even 60 years of age and occurrences of complete loss of mental acuity before age 70 are widely known.
3 Pick a starting number, the number can be adjusted by Congress as experience shows appropriate. But what we cannot have is SCOTUS simply tossing cases to keep its workload easy--that is not conducive to Justice (the 17th word of the Constitution).
1 Sure, say 18 year terms allows a nice neat cycle of replacements but there is no guarantee of regular party-of-control switches to make it work ideally either.
2 It is not unusual for intellectual acuity to commence decline before even 60 years of age and occurrences of complete loss of mental acuity before age 70 are widely known.
3 Pick a starting number, the number can be adjusted by Congress as experience shows appropriate. But what we cannot have is SCOTUS simply tossing cases to keep its workload easy--that is not conducive to Justice (the 17th word of the Constitution).