What is the perfect number of Supreme Court justices?
8 billion: We can all agree that this would be too many. The size of the Doodle poll required to schedule court sessions would be a nightmare, and, besides, not all of them would have WiFi, and some of them would have just been born. Also, an even number.
328 million: Definitely an improvement from 8 billion but still a few too many, I think! They would all have to videoconference and it would overflow onto too many screens to be practical. Also, if everyone wanted to ask a question, even if Justice Clarence Thomas didn’t, each hearing would last multiple years without even factoring in the amount of time required to answer the questions.
107,601: This is also too many, but at least it is an odd number! It is specifically the number of people who can fit into Michigan Stadium, so that does solve the problem of where everyone would sit. But I think once everyone was seated in Michigan Stadium, they would want to see a football game and would be disappointed to have to hear a court case instead.
5,500: They could all fit into a large theater! Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg used to love going to the opera, and this would be a number that would allow the new justices to replicate that experience. I suppose this presents the football problem again.
435: You would think this number would be manageable, but it is too many, I think. There is another branch of government trying to work with this number already, and it seems kind of chaotic and bad.
101: Might get mistaken for Dalmatians.
1: Probably too few? Would this justice also want to write dissents? Upside: No Doodle polls at all.
2: The minimum number of Supreme Court justices needed to play tennis. But probably otherwise unsuitable — how could you tell which opinion was the correct one?
3: Now we are getting somewhere! You get a clear majority, and if the Supreme Court justices play tennis, you can also have someone keep score and pick up the balls afterward, perhaps the most junior member.
4: Four was good enough for the March sisters, although they, too, did notice that it created problems and ultimately felt that three might be a more stable number. Good number to ensure that everyone feels included — no one ever talks about “fourth-wheeling,” except maybe to compliment a car on being correctly constructed.
5: Mm, too boy band-y. Everyone would be expected to have one specific trait as a personality, and all the court coverage would come back to, “There’s Justice 3, she’s the sporty one! There’s Justice 4, the bad boy!”
10: Last number of Supreme Court justices that could be easily counted without removing any socks.
11: A more unwieldy 9, but it does create the option for the justices to play either one game of basketball with one scorekeeper or five games of tennis with one scorekeeper.
13: Perfect number for reenacting the Last Supper in judicial group portraits. Also, frees up the schedule for the SCOTUS basketball team because not everyone is needed to play in every game. Downsides: Does having more justices solve the problem we are trying to solve with the court, namely, the manner by which the last three justices have been deposited there, and the duration of time they are bound to spend once they arrive? Is the number the problem, exactly? Would just increasing the number of people on the Supreme Court without also addressing the structural issues of this centuries-old institution just cause this problem to mushroom?
9.5: I don’t know how this would work, but I’d be willing to give it a try.
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