Supreme Court

[silverscreenselect]

For some reason, expanding the legislature feels different than the court, so if Puerto Rico and DC and Guam want representatives who can actually vote, I might be OK with that, but dadgum, if you do it, do it all at once so they don't have to keep messing around with the flag.

Actually, expanding the size of Congress makes sense. The size of the House of Representatives started at 65 and gradually expanded to the current 435 in 1913 after Arizona became the 48th state. That 435 number became permanent with the passage of the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. (When Alaska and Hawaii became states, the House expanded temporarily to 437 to allow them to have a Representative but was reduced to 435 again after the 1960 census.) The population of the U.S. in 1913 was 97 million, which meant that there was one Representative for every 223,000 people. The current population is 330 million, which means one representative for every 759,000 people. However, expanding the size of Congress has never polled particularly well and would never pass in the current environment because it would shift more power to urban areas (which tend to vote Democratic).

[silverscreenselect]

Damn, play by the rules there are; when you try to rewrite the rules in the middle of the game, that is like trying to say the outcome wasn't a final score. Bitch to the ref for a minute, and then get ready for the next game.

The number of Justices changed several times in the first eighty years under the Constitution, usually for political reasons. It has been set at nine since 1869 (when it was reduced from 10). The most frequent number given is 13 and there's a reason. There are 13 Federal circuits (the 11 numbered circuits, the DC Circuit, and what's called the Federal Circuit, which has nationwide jurisdiction over appeals in specific types of cases like patent cases). Each circuit has a justice assigned to it, and that justice handles special requests like stays for cases from that circuit, pending full review by the court. Litigants can't pick and choose which justice to apply for a stay; they have to go to the justice for that circuit. The Chief Justice hands out assignments and usually does so geographically, so that a justice is assigned the circuit near where they live. Obviously, with 13 circuits and nine justices, some have to do double duty. Currently, Chief Justice Roberts is also the justice for the DC, Federal, and Fourth Circuits. Justice Alito handles the Third and Fifth Circuits, while the other seven justices have one apiece. After a replacement is named for Justice Breyer, the Chief Justice will issue new assignments for next term.