With progressives pushing to increase the number of seats on the bench, a blue-ribbon commission of 36 academics, Constitutional scholars, historians and legal experts completed the first draft of its report Monday, the Associated Press reports.
Led by Bob Bauer, who served as White House counsel for former President Barack Obama, and Cristina Rodriguez, a Yale Law School professor who served in the Office of Legal Counsel for Obama, the panel was not tasked with identifying ways to alter the political lean of the court, which currently have a significant 6-3 slant to the conservative slant. Instead, this report reviewed discussions on court reforms, including building on earlier work of the commission which looked into the feasibility of standard term lengths and mandatory rotating retirements for justices.
This report summarizes the potential of allowing justices to retire from the Supreme Court after a certain length of service on the high court and then returning to a lower court of their choosing. The report also discusses how to make the court more “citizen friendly” through broadcasting arguments.
“Mirroring the broader public debate, there is profound disagreement among commissioners on these issues. We present the arguments in order to fulfill our charge to provide a complete account of the contemporary court reform debate,” the report says.