How to Fix the Supreme Court After the ObamaCare Judgment | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

How to Fix the Supreme Court After the ObamaCare Judgment | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "To have momentous cases decided by a five-four vote carries more than a hint of arbitrariness. Happenstance in one appointment three or more decades before could effectively set important areas of government policy today.

A larger court—Turley proposes adding justices slowly, to prevent any single president from dominating the institution—would reduce the likelihood of decisions by a small, idiosyncratic majority. Where a true consensus developed, the Supreme Court would speak with a large and authoritative majority. A larger court also would allow more diverse membership. Today the high court is dominated by former appellate court judges. That’s good training, but the body would benefit from a greater mix of backgrounds."

"The jurist pool should be leavened with a few judges who understand economics, history, and more. They would need to become conversant with the law, but the average bright college graduate could do far better than some past Supreme Court justices in interpreting the Constitution."

"members of the high court should be appointed for a fixed term of five or ten years. Lifetime appointment is intended to shield jurists from political currents, but it also ensures that bad jurists are able to inflict themselves on the American people for decades in some cases. The greater their perceived insulation from reality, the greater will be the attacks on justices for their decisions."

"The natural churning of justices would be more orderly and less arbitrary if they served fixed terms."

"Unless the starting point is what the relevant text was intended to mean, interpretation is but a sophisticated fraud, an eloquent rationalization for one ideology or another. There always will be disagreements, even among jurists with similar philosophies, but a commitment to the rule of law rather than the rule of man is critical."

"President George W. Bush signed into law a campaign “reform” measure he believed to be unconstitutional and said that he could arrest American citizens on American soil and lock them away without legal due process."