If you are wondering if the Supreme Court makeup is going to change that ultimately will be up to the president to decide and congress. The White House posted the nearly 300 page final report that was unanimously agreed to by the 34 member bipartisan panel of legal scholars and independent experts who have been reviewing all kinds of changes to the Supreme Court.
In mid October the report was announced to be coming in the near future. This report does not give the President or Congress any specific recommendations on what they should do. The report simply reviews several reformed proposals that have been floating around and gives the history of them and the legal analysis for each of them. The report also gives arguments for and against each of them.
This committee institution does not specify how many justices should sit on the court; it only establishes one Supreme Court and one specific person identified as Chief Justice John Robert.
At the same time the Constitution gives Congress the authority to change all laws that are not necessary or proper to carry out the powers given to Congress under the Constitution. Under that specific clause Congress since the 1800s has changed the size and scoop of the court and the federal judiciary.
The constitution also gives the President with advice and consent from the Senate the power to nominate federal judges including Supreme Court justices.
So what changes did this panel explore? The panel talks about a lot of different potential reforms:
- The idea of adding more justices.
- Rotating the court’s membership.
- Implementing term limits.
- A mandatory retirement age.
- Limiting the court’s authority to only hear certain types of cases giving congress the ability to maybe override a supreme court ruling about a piece of its legislation.
- Lack of transparency in the high court.
- And explores the idea of maybe adding cameras during oral arguments.
If anything changes for the Supreme Court it will be up to the President and Congress to make those changes. If the idea of even changing anything in Congress you will certainly hear about it from your lawmakers.
