We have a Google Sheet here at CleanTechnica global headquarters that we use to keep track of stories we intend to write. Our server also retains a list of stories that are in draft but not completed. When I go to the dashboard these days, I see a draft I started two years ago but never completed. It contains a link to an article written by Paul Rosenberg and published by Salon in January of 2023. See what I mean about not getting around to things in a timely fashion around here? Every day, we are inundated by news stories about advances in cleantech that seem to demand our attention, and that means we let other things slide. Besides, is the US Supreme Court even a proper topic for an outfit that calls itself CleanTechnica? Some would argue it is not, but when the court builds fictional walls to protect the fossil fuel industry — many of the so-called justices own shares in those companies — or strikes down longstanding principles such as the Endangerment Finding, we think the answer is yes, this is a proper subject to advance our mission and keep our readers informed. A Poll By JC Bruce Because I live in DeSantistan Florida, where the governor and his allies conspire to take $10 million in federal funds intended to feed hungry children and divert it to a private charity run by the goobernor’s wife instead, I subscribe to a Substack site maintained by JC Bruce, a Florida news correspondent for more than 30 years. On September 2, he published a piece that asked “How Badly Do You Want To Change The Supreme Court?” His piece ends with two opinion polls. The first asked this question: “Should the Supreme Court be expanded? Should it stay the same?” As of 8 am this morning, 429 response have been received, with 60 percent saying the court should be expanded and 32 percent saying it should remain at nine members. The second question asks: “Should we term-limit Supreme Court justices?” 403 people have voted on that question — 99 percent are in favor and 1 percent opposed. Clearly, at least among JC Bruce readers, the desire for a change is overwhelming. Expanding The Court Any proposal to change the number of members of the court is an anathema to those currently in power. Republicans in Congress are pushing for a constitutional amendment that would establish nine as the permanent number. Representative Andy Biggs, of Arizona introduced the resolution in January 2025. In June of this year he argued it would protect the court from people “threatening to pack this iconic American institution to ensure favorable outcomes for their causes. This action will protect the Court’s legitimacy, preserve the checks and balances that safeguard our cherished freedoms, and ensure every American’s rights remain secure — no matter who holds political power.” Biggs would say that, since the court as currently constituted consistently bends over backwards to approve conservative causes while lambasting those advanced by Democrats. The idea of expanding the court is gaining traction among Democrats who are tired of losing. There is historical precedent for doing so. The Constitution does not establish the number of justices for the Supreme Court and it has varied over time — sometimes more, sometimes less. Some observers contend the current number was arrived at because at one time there were nine judicial districts, each with its own Circuit Court. It made sense for here to be one Supreme Court judge responsible for each circuit. Today, however, there are thirteen judicial districts. Doesn’t it make sense that there should be thirteen members of the Supreme Court as well? That is a pretty simple argument to make and has some surface appeal. There Is No Magic Bullet Gabe Roth is the executive director of a nonprofit called Fix the Court. He told JC Bruce that setting the number of justices at nine permanently and adding new ones are both “pretty cynical positions. I think it just is part of this magical thinking that all of a sudden we’re going to have 13 justices and everything is going to be okay in the federal judiciary. That voting rights will come back, abortion rights will come back, and that’s not how cases reach the court.” On the “keep nine” side, Roth said there’s a belief that the court now has a “perfect construct. It’s not. I don’t see why keep nine is a good idea other than to try to rile up the base.” Instead he prefers to see term limits phased in gradually over time. “Every democracy that’s younger than ours has term limits or age limits for their apex court justices. Forty nine out of 50 states have term limits, age limits, or retention elections for their apex courts,” he said. The Supreme Court lacks term limits “because King George was firing colonial judges, and so some monarch’s mental decrepitude shouldn’t be a reason for maintaining something 250 years later,” Roth said. He supports legislation introduced last year by Representative Ro Khanna that would limit a justice’s Supreme Court service to 18 years, and would give each president a chance to nominate one justice during their first and third years in office, which means the number of justices could fluctuate at times, depending on retirements or deaths. “It’s basically like you add a new justice every two years, and if there are 10 or 11 justices for 10 or 15 years, so be it,” he said. Such a system would be “fair” and “regularized,” Roth added. “So we don’t have a system where Trump gets three (nominations) in one term, and then Jimmy Carter got zero in his one term.” A Conversation With David Gans In the Salon article, Rosenberg reported on a conversation he had with David Gans, the director of the Human Rights, Civil Rights, and Citizenship Program at the Constitutional Accountability Center, who contends that the post-Civil War period holds significant lessons about how to achieve greater accountability in a time of intense political conflict. At times in that era, the Supreme Court was composed of as many as ten justices and as few as six. At issue was how to reintegrate the states that had seceded from the Union in a way that would prevent them from using laws to disadvantage former slaves. And yet, the Jim Crow era continued to place restrictions on black people right up until the civil rights era began, starting with the Brown Vs Board of Education ruling that overruled the “separate but equal” fiction. “Reconstruction provides an important reminder that Congress has many tools available to it to ensure that the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary upholds our whole Constitution’s bedrock promises of liberty and equal justice. And unlike the case of FDR’s court expansion plan, Reconstruction provides examples of reforms that were successfully enacted into law. In all these respects, Reconstruction provides a model for comprehensive court reform today,” Gans said. “But those who hoped the newly constituted Supreme Court would vindicate the Constitution’s new guarantees of liberty and equality were bitterly disappointed. Even with new appointments, the Supreme Court of the Reconstruction era repeatedly gutted the 14th Amendment…..This reflects both the appointment politics of the day, in which presidents prioritized appointing justices that would uphold wartime measures, and a national mood that, as time went on, increasingly took a tragically dim view of Reconstruction’s promises of racial justice.” Proceed With Caution That is a cautionary message for those who think increasing the size of the court to 13 would solve all their problems, forgetting the draconian ways in which Senator Mitch McConnell slow walked the nomination process while Obama was in office, eventually running out the clock by insisting no new justices should be confirmed until after the next election, and then fast tracking the appointment of the next justice just weeks before an election. Bear in mind that the court as constituted today is a creation of a conservative cabal spearheaded by Charles and David Koch that has taken more than 60 years to come to fruition. Making the number of judges 13 or 27 or 156 will not prevent future attempts to pack the court with ideologues who kowtow to the wishes of wealthy Americans while denying justice to the rest. “Reconstruction witnessed the greatest enlargement of federal jurisdiction in American history. Many of these measures changed the powers of the federal courts to vindicate constitutionally guaranteed rights, seeking to make the federal courts partners in Reconstruction’s project of ensuring equal citizenship and reining in abuse of state power,” Gans said. “The Habeas Corpus Act of 1867 gave federal courts the power to free a person held in state custody in violation of the Constitution or federal law, while Section 1983, enacted in 1871, created a right to sue state and local officers to enforce federal constitutional rights in federal court. The big idea underlying both these landmark pieces of legislation was that it was up to federal courts to safeguard constitutional rights and ensure governmental accountability. “Reforms of this sort should be part of the progressive court reform agenda today. The Roberts court has repeatedly closed the courthouse doors to those victimized by government or corporate abuse of power. A central goal of court reform today should be to realize our constitutional promise of equal justice under law by broadly opening courthouse doors that the Roberts court has repeatedly bolted shut.” A Modest Proposal The common denominator in all these discussions is how to prevent a small minority from hijacking the national agenda. In my opinion — which is worth exactly what you paid for it — term limits are essential. Senators should be limited to three terms — 18 years — and Representatives to 6 terms — 12 years. Supreme Court judges need to be free from the ups and downs of popular passions, but 15 years seems like a reasonable number. Making it some number not divisible by four or two would prevent appointments to the court from becoming fodder for congressional and presidential campaigns. But equally important is for Congress to reassert its constitutional duty to represent the people of the United States and not special interests. For decades, Congress has been only too happy to give its powers away to the president or to administrative agencies and both Republicans and Democrats are to blame. Nobody wants to go on the record with a vote that may come back to haunt them at election time and so they smile for the cameras and happily pass the buck to avoid taking a stand. Another provision that should become law is a prohibition on members of Congress, the president, or members of the Supreme Court, trading in shares of companies that are affected by their actions. That is such blatant corruption, no one should be allowed to do so and it should result in a fine three times the size of any gains realized. The US government is broken. Adding four members to the Supreme Court will not fix it. Only rededicating ourselves to the original proposition that all people are created equal and born with certain inalienable rights will put America back on the right track. But nothing will happen unless people of good conscience are elected or appointed to serve the interests of the nation. We know what to do. Now we must do it.