this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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A large portion of that has to do with Congress limiting their size back in 1929. It turned the House into a second Senate, undermining its purpose. Without that limit Congress would actually represent constituents because the divisions would actually be small enough to effectively do so. Instead we have districts representing millions of people and others representing just a hundred thousand but with the same voting power. The House no longer represents the population and hasn't for nearly 100 years.
The Supreme Court should have been expanded as the federal judicial circuits did. There should be a Justice overseeing each federal circuit, of which there are 12 now. The precedent was set in 1807 when they added a 7th justice to match the new 7th circuit, and 1837 when it expanded to 9 for the new 8th and 9th circuits, and 1863 expanded to 10 for the 10th circuit. They retracted to 7 in 1866 to limit Andrew Johnson and then back to 9 in 1869 after Johnson was out of office. And it has sat there ever since. That clearly was not intended to be the case, but here we are.
Yep, agreed on all points.
That is not actually true. There is no congressional district with even one million people, let alone "millions". There is no congressional district with "just a hundred thousand".
The current largest, Delaware-at-large, has 989,948 people.
The current smallest, Rhode Island 1st, has 545,085.
That is the maximum variation. It is due to Delaware being not quite big enough to warrant two districts, and Rhode Island being just barely large enough to warrant a second. Delaware is underrepresented, Rhode Island over.
Due to the fundamental concept of districting, the outlier districts, both large and small, will always be in 1 and 2 district states. Districts in larger states will always be divided more fairly than the smallest states.
I think we should appoint one new justice at the end of the first and third years of each presidential term, to keep appointments as far away from the presidential and midterm elections as possible. Add a new seat every other year, and never refill a vacated seat.
Allow the size of the court to fluctuate. Allow single-seat swings, instead of expecting justices to time their retirements for when a favorable president is in office, or risking two-seat swings when an unfavorable president replaces an unexpected vacancy.
The average tenure of the court is currently 16 years, which would give us 8 justices. But, strategic retirement is artificially reducing the expected term, so terms would likely be much longer.
The longest tenure was 34 years, which would give us 17 justices. The typical size of the court would likely fluctuate between 10 and 14.
I would include one more factor, to reduce the effect of Senate intransigence. Every circuit court judge has been previously confirmed by the Senate. The president would obviously prefer to nominate the youngest justice they can find to SCOTUS, but if the Senate decides to play games and refuses to confirm, the circuit court justices represent a small pool of pre-confirmed candidates that can be nominated without additional confirmation.