523
US federal judges consider creating own armed security force as threats mount
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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politics
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I was thinking that maybe the US could use three presidents - West, East, and Center, each heading up a major chunk of territory. SCOTUS could be expanded to have 50 justices, each state appointing a single justice to represent them on the supreme court. The presidents each could select a single head justice, whose job is to communicate the viewpoint of the executives, and to write up the conclusions that SCOTUS factions have reached.
That sort of thing should help maintain the intention of the Constitution, where branches - or rather, interests, constantly jockey against each other, thus being equal. The problem with our current politics is that too much power has been concentrated into the hands of too few people, essentially destroying the balance of branches.
Giving each state equal representation without a population distribution that is exactly equal across every state inherently devalues the representation of those in population centers, giving disproportionate power to a party that is outnumbered but is spread out over the much emptier land. Equal rep must be based proportionally off of population to avoid devaluing individual voter influence.
I think that in the case of the judiciary's supreme court, having a huge amount of people would be a 'too many cooks in the kitchen' problem. The important thing is a diversity of viewpoints who can argue on the technical (and moral) merits of the topic. Each state should send their most capable justice who can persuade their peers.
The way I figure, such an expanded SCOTUS would naturally form four or five cliques of 10-20 members apiece, who work with head justices to articulate their viewpoints into a dissertation on the topic. These proposals are examined and held to a vote, with the weakest being removed from the running - at which point, a rewrite is done on the remaining proposals by aligned cliques, voted on, and repeated until only one remains. Head justices do not get to vote, unless there is an exact tie among rulings.
...honestly, it would be good if there was a scientific research institute, dedicated to trying out political concepts like this in a simulated setting. The big problem of theoretical political systems is that they typically have to be applied to real-world people, which causes no end of social chafing. Having an MMO or roleplay to research these things, may go a long way towards healthy implementations.
While nice in theory, that's not how partisan politics works in practice. What's going to happen is that the absurdly large proportion of judges from conservative states will simply shout over opposition like they currently do in all other branches of government and stonewall any attempt to compromise. Gods forbid you try to push progressive ideas.