I think we need a new Judicial Act that fixes the flaws with the original. Tie the number of justices to… the number of Appellate Courts? I think that’s where they got the original number of nine from, though it’s grown as the country has grown. Extend the Federal Judicial Ethics rules to all Federal courts, even the Supreme Court. Those two at the very least, maybe we can come up with some other good things, qualifications? Term limits? Age limits?

A SCOTUS that is so willing to ignore its own precedent (Dobbs) deserves no deference to the (informal!) precedent of a 9-Justice bench. There are 11 Federal judicial circuits. An 11-justice court has a nice symmetry to it.

The focus on SCOTUS is too myopic. We need Article III reform from the bottom to the top. It should be designed by a non partisan group of lawyers, judges, and advocates from all backgrounds. New judges should be recommended by this group, maybe in chunks (you get 5 prosecutors as judges if we get 5 public defenders as judges).

Ethics rules should apply to SCOTUS Justices.

We need more federal courts. Our courts at all levels are overwhelmed. From what I’ve read and heard, is mostly due to corporations filing lawsuits. So it’s possible this could be fixed by reforming the qualifications to submit lawsuits or to give clerks the ability to reject (or suggest rejection) of lawsuits.

Obviously if we need more courts, we need more judges. Preferably more diverse in background, like public defenders and community advocacy law.

More appellate courts. Obviously more lower courts and judges mean more decisions to appeal and otherwise supervise/police/review. No appellate court in America with the power to issue a national injunction should have only one judge for Christ’s sake. Minimum 3.

A new level of appellate court? Maybe regional nearly-supreme courts? Or maybe subject matter based penultimate courts? Like for criminal justice, white collar crime, immigration, drugs, different civil matters like employment law, discrimination, etc. SCOTUS suffers greatly from having to switch from being experts in different legal realms with every new case. Maybe these new courts could help with that.

AND … expand SCOTUS to match all these new appellate levels. So if we have 15 “regions” or whatever, we need 15 Justices. Preferably an odd number so there won’t be ties.