LAISSEZ LES BOO QUESO ROULER

@thequeso.bsky.social

405 ‘til I die. Proprietor of The Internet's Worst Matts List, the Internet's only ranking of Worst Matts since 2018, now presented exclusively on Bluesky.

One of my oldest friend’s mom died unexpectedly last weekend, and I am legitimately heartbroken. She taught my Sunday school when I was four, and ever since she has been a person I was always delighted to see. She was the same age as my mom. I would be unmoored.

Steve is great and all and makes very good points, but the thing that I am now 100% convinced of is that the legal academy and the courts should have only an advisory role in the remaking of the American judiciary. It’s too important to leave it to the lawyers.

Steve Vladeck@stevevladeck.bsky.social · 3d ago

Calls for expanding #SCOTUS are entirely (and increasingly) understandable. But as today's "One First" explains, there are at least four difficult questions that those who support expansion should have to answer—especially as compared to other possible reforms: www.stevevladeck.com/p/bonus-257-...

Screenshot from the post listing the four questions Court expansion proponents should have to answer:

1. How do we avoid touching off a race to the bottom, where each time one party controls the House, Senate, and presidency, it expands the Court to ensure an ideologically and politically sympathetic majority?

2. If a race to the bottom is unavoidable, how do we avoid further (and potentially fatal) erosion of public confidence in the Court—which will quite transparently be little more than a lever of power for whichever party last had such a trifecta?

3. If eroding public confidence in the Court is a feature, and not a bug, how do we insulate against the same erosion of public confidence in lower federal courts?

4. What is the case for why expansion is a better way to achieve the desired reforms than alternatives that would (or, at least, should) avoid many of these forward-looking concerns?