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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2019 - 2020
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | August 2, 2019 11:59 AM |
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| From: | Representative Cris Dush |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Limiting the Number of Supreme Court Justices |
| In the near future, I will be introducing a Resolution petitioning Congress to call a convention of states to propose a constitutional amendment to limit the number of supreme court justices to nine. The Supreme Court currently has nine justices; however, it hasn’t always been that way. The U.S. Constitution established the Supreme Court but left it to Congress to decide how many justices should make up the court. The Judiciary Act of 1789 set the number at six; in 1807 Congress increased the number of justices to seven; in 1837, the number was bumped up to nine; and in 1863, it rose to 10. In 1866, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act, which shrank the number of justices back down to seven and prevented President Andrew Johnson from appointing anyone new to the court. Three years later, in 1869, Congress raised the number of justices to nine, where it has stood ever since. In 1937, in an effort to create a court more friendly to his New Deal programs, President Franklin Roosevelt attempted to convince Congress to pass legislation that would allow a new justice to be added to the court; that attempt failed. The Founding Fathers believed in checks and balances, and by amending the U.S. Constitution to include a specific number of Supreme Court Justices, we will eliminate the possibility of the Legislative and Executive Branches of our government from using the Supreme Court as a means to satisfy their own agenda. Support this resolution and help restore the checks and balances that were originally intended for our nation. |
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