Nascent Decadence wrote:Retirement age, OK. I'd make it 75, maybe peg it to federal retirement age so it could be painlessly reduced in the future (lower retirement age being the most equitable way to see that younger people can get scarce jobs in the future).
I would rather have it at 65, cognitive decline is much more likely after, but that's an "implementation detail".
Nascent Decadence wrote:I disagree on splitting the court. Say a state law is struck down as unconstitutional by one branch of the Supreme Court. Does that precedent apply to the Federal Government branch? Likewise, findings on individual cases have to be applied to state and federal law. "Ranking" the new branches would make matters even worse.
I would have a single court handling all the constitutionality and only that and another handling individual cases, so no clashing jurisdiction/ranking.
Nascent Decadence wrote:A much bigger court, but not all sitting on the same case, seems the way to go. Perhaps even enforcing balance: justices would be assigned to Team Red or Team Blue, according to which President appointed them, then for each case a large bench could be drawn at random from each team. Equal numbers does require that some cases will be deadlocked, but is that even a disaster?
The much bigger court with random selection for each case could work. But not the "team red"/"team blue". First we really don't want to make bipartism even more anchored. And then it's not like the two parties should always be equal. The GOP is the minority. It has lost the popular vote everytime since 1992 except for 2004 and that was because people "rallied to the flag" after the shock of 9/11. The minority should not have as much say as the majority and be able to impose its reactionary views on younger generations. That the GOP, being the minority since 20 years, controls 6 Justices on 9 shows how much the system is rigged, but enforcing strict partisan equality isn't the way to fix it.