Until 1866, the size of #SCOTUS was tied directly to the number of circuit courts of appeals—from 6 seats in 1789 to 10 seats in 1863.
Each Justice therefore not only supervised a circuit, but truly _represented_ it, guaranteeing at least one meaningful source of diversity...
Each Justice therefore not only supervised a circuit, but truly _represented_ it, guaranteeing at least one meaningful source of diversity...
When Congress took away seats in 1866 to punish President Johnson, it thereby set the precedent for treating the Court’s size as a political consideration—a big part of why it’s been stuck at 9 since Congress restored two of the three deleted seats in 1869.
Untethering the Court’s size from strict geographic considerations not only politicized it, but it also removed one of the only formal incentives for any kind of diversity—such that any vector of diversity today is solely a result of political calculations and/or pressures.
It’s interesting to wonder what #SCOTUS nominations would look like today if there was still an ironclad presumption that each seat corresponded to a circuit—or, at least, to a specific geographic part of the country...
