The size of the Supreme Court has been legally changed 7 times [View all]

[octoberlib]

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It underwent five full legal implementations:

1789-1807: six seats
1807-1837: seven seats
1837-1866: ten seats
1866-1867: nine seats
1867-1869: eight seats
1869-present: nine seats

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And twice, legislation changed its size but was never implemented for various reasons, notably the Judiciary Act of 1801 (or Midnight Judges Act), which would have reduced its size to five upon the next vacancy but was repealed by the Judiciary Act of 1802.

Another attempt that was never (fully) implemented was the Judicial Circuits Act of 1866, which would have provided the next three justices not be replaced when they retire; however, only two seats were eliminated before the Circuit Judges Act altered the size to nine seats.


But why all the fluctuation?

Well, the way our judiciary system is set up is having three levels of federal courts.

At the district level, the lowest, there are 673 federal judges.

They're overseen by 179 appeals judges (circuit courts).

At the top: 9 SCOTUS justices.


Over time, the expansion of the United States in both land and population required a greater workload, which meant more district judges, more appeals judges, etc.

For example, the Seventh Circuit was added in 1807, along with a SCOTUS justice to match in labor.

That's how we eventually got to nine justices, to correspond with nine circuit courts. There's a lot of political maneuvering between parties here, tho, which is why we went from 7 to 10 to 9 to 8 to 9.

(Are you getting the feeling the court has always been political? Correct.)

It's also fair to note that the practice of SCOTUS justices "riding circuit", as in literally taking a tour of courts in their corresponding region, fell out of practice with time.

What didn't change is that we STILL altered the federal judiciary LONG after 1869. Like recently.

For example, in 1978, Congress authorized 117 additional district judges and 35 circuit court judges (the appeals judges) to be appointed by the President.

In 1984, there were 24 additional circuit court judges authorized.

Fast-forward to Obama's presidency, when despite Democrats winning two presidential elections in a row, McConnell and GOP Senators blocked over 100 judicial nominations by Obama.

There was "no will of the people" nonsense. He just blocked them. Didn't even consider them.

There are 870 federal judgeships that are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, authorized under Article III fo the Constitution.

Through this egregious process, Trump and McConnell have slammed through 220 confirmations at those three levels. In 4 years.

For comparison, Obama put through 329 over EIGHT years through a good faith process.

For those doing the math, Trump has confirmed about 25% more federal judges annually. That's a lot. And it was done so through an intentional rigging of the process at stunning speed.