A Closer Look At Bernie Sanders' Idea To ROTATE SCOTUS Justices To Lower Courts. It's POSSIBLE!!

[TrollBuster9090]

Last edited Wed Sep 23, 2020, 07:05 PM - Edit history (2)

If you blinked, you might have missed it. But Bernie Sanders floated a GREAT idea to UN-FCUK the Supreme Court during the primaries. Now that the GOP is doubling down on FCUKING the Supreme Court, Bernie's idea deserves a second look.

His idea was to ROTATE the Supreme Court justices to the lower courts. It might be a palatable alternative to simply EXPANDING the SCOTUS for a few Democratic Senators who'd get cold feet about it. Here's what you'd do: appoint a few more Justices (say, a total of 20), and then the JUDICIARY ACT of 2021, stating that ELEVEN of them will be on rotation to the lower courts. (Presumably, which eleven would be rotated out would be drawn at random.)

Is it possible? PROBABLY!

1. Congress has the Constitutional right to expand the court. No problem there.

2. There is HISTORICAL PRECEDENT. Under the Judicial Act of 1789, the SCOTUS Justices had to 'ride circuit.' They had to rotate out to the lower courts to hear cases alongside district judges. The practice was reversed in the Judiciary Act of 1869 when the SCOTUS Justices whined about spending too much time on the road. Well, if you reversed it once, you can REVERSE IT BACK! Pass a Judicial Act of 2020 that sends them back out on the road.

3. A side benefit to this would be that it would de-politicize the SCOTUS! If you have a much larger pool of Justices, appointed by both parties, ...and if which ones that are sitting for Constitutional cases is drawn at random, that would take a LOT of the political pressure off the court.

So, here's how it would work:
Trump and McConnell leave the SCOTUS with 6 reactionary 'conservative' Justices, and 3 liberal justices. Biden and Senate Democrats add 11 liberal justices, diluting the influence of the reactionaries to 6 in 20. Then, every few months, you randomly pick 11 SCOTUS Justices to be rotated out to the District Courts, leaving 9 in Washington to hear the actual Supreme Court cases. But with a ratio of 6 reactionary to 14 liberal, the odds are that, at any given time there would be 6 liberal and 3 conservative Justices hearing cases in Washington.

Here's a LEGAL/HISTORICAL opinion on the subject!

https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2019/07/maria-hodge-rotating-justices/

[msongs]

1. trump has loaded lower courts, how to rotate judges and keep out trumpies nt

[DSandra]

2. Trump doesn't play by any rules, why should we be the goody good rule followers?

F*** that! And the better when we can use laws and precedents that are on our side.

[lastlib]

3. Another idea I liked--

Create a National Court of Appeals. (Pack it with young, good progressive judges). All appeals from district courts and courts of appeals go here.
Strip the Supreme Court of its appellate jurisdiction. Give it its constitutional original jurisdiction only. So it's going to get very few cases, thus giving Clarence PubicHair more nap-time.

Problems solved.

[TrollBuster9090]

5. That's an AWESOME IDEA! I hadn't heard that one. nt

[BainsBane]

4. I like the idea

but given the GOP domination of lower courts, I'm not sure how practical it is.

[TrollBuster9090]

6. It means the SCOTUS Justices rotate out to lower courts, but lower court judges do not rotate UP to

the SCOTUS. So, there would be, say, 20 SCOTUS judges. At any given time, 11 of them would be chosen at random to rotate out to the district courts, but they'd eventually rotate back to the SCOTUS in Washington.

So, for example, Trump and McConnell leave the SCOTUS with 6 reactionary 'conservative' Justices, and 3 liberal Justices. Biden adds 11 new liberal Justices. That DILUTES the power of the reactionary Justices to 6 in 20. Then you start rotating them at random. The odds are that, at any given time, you'll have a SCOTUS in Washington that's composed of 6 liberal and 3 reactionary judges.

[In It to Win It]

7. Of all the ideas I've heard about reforming the Court, I like this the best

[BainsBane]

8. I agree.

[FBaggins]

9. That's no different from just adding to the court

Having them serve with a lower court doesn't take them off of SCOTUS or keep them off of SCOTUS cases, it just makes them busier.

There's no way to say "oh... you're with the 6th circuit this month so you can't vote on issue X"

Put another way. SCOTUS doesn't have "panel" decisions with a subset of the court. A justice has to recuse herself (or not be seated at the time the case was heard) to not vote on it.

[UTUSN]

10. K&R