The Supreme Court decides what your rights are and what Congress is allowed to do about anything. Real Supreme Court reform starts with something most people were never taught: the Constitution doesn't say how many justices there are. Congress decides that, in an ordinary law. The Court started with six justices. Congress changed the number several times in the 1800s, and it has been nine since 1869.[1][2] The next Congress can change it the same way.
The Court we have now was shaped by hardball. In March 2016 President Obama nominated Merrick Garland. The Senate never scheduled a hearing, and the nomination was sent back in January 2017, so the seat went to the next president.[3] People have noticed. In July 2026 Gallup measured the Court's job approval at 33%, the lowest in the 26 years Gallup has asked.[4]
Life tenure means a seat opens when a justice dies or decides to leave, so every vacancy turns into a fight. Our fix is 18-year terms, staggered so a seat opens every two years. That gives every president two picks per term, no more and no fewer. In a September 2026 Marquette Law School poll, 79% favored fixed terms for justices.[5]
The justices adopted their own code of conduct in 2023. It's written in "should": "A Justice should avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety."[6] Nothing in it says what happens to a justice who ignores it. In the same Marquette poll, 89% favored a strict ethics code for the Court.[5]
The blockades happen lower down too. For district court judges, the Senate Judiciary Committee waits for a "blue slip" from both home-state senators before it moves a nominee, so one senator can stop a judge for their state. That isn't in the Constitution, in any law or even in the committee's written rules. It's a policy the chair chooses to keep.[7] A chair who wants judges confirmed can drop it.
The objection: "Republicans will just add more seats next time"
They might. A witness told President Biden's 2021 commission on the Court that expansion could turn into tit-for-tat.[2] Adding seats is the least popular of the three ideas Marquette asked about; it found 53% in favor and 47% against.[5] But the tit-for-tat already started, when a Senate majority left a seat open for most of a year without a hearing, and the next president filled it.[3] Pairing new seats with fixed terms and a real ethics code is how the Court stops being a prize for whoever games the calendar best.
Sources
- 28 U.S. Code § 1, Number of justices; quorum (Cornell Legal Information Institute). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1
- Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, Final Report, December 2021. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-PR-PURL-gpo173589/pdf/GOVPUB-PR-PURL-gpo173589.pdf
- Congressional Research Service, Insight IN10476, March 13, 2017. https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20170313_IN10476_1afea34aab5d66592b9078ad383c5e1e9aa2c50b.html
- Gallup, "Supreme Court Job Approval Slumps to Record Low," July 28, 2026. https://news.gallup.com/poll/4732/supreme-court.aspx
- Minnesota Lawyer, on the Marquette Law School national poll of September 2-9, 2026. https://minnlawyer.com/2026/09/21/us-supreme-court-approval-falls-marquette-poll/
- Supreme Court of the United States, Code of Conduct for Justices, November 13, 2023. https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/Code-of-Conduct-for-Justices_November_13_2023.pdf
- Congressional Research Service, "The Blue Slip Process for U.S. Circuit and District Court Nominations (1917-Present)" (R44975), updated November 20, 2025. https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/2025-11-20_R44975_8e48819f3da545bcd314170e328be0b59a6bd065.html