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This is a bit disingenuous however, since 24 states also have elected judges, and every state other than Rhode Island has term-limited judges: state courts are a different beast. https://twitter.com/paulgp/status/1321873362453450752
Increasing the size of the bench in a context where the people being added are 1) going to be chosen via election or 2) going to be replaceable anyways after 6 years by the next governor is not even remotely similar to adding more life-term judges.
Thus, in terms of the extent to which court packing is a novel, extreme, or escalatory tactic, at the state court level it really doesn't seem like it would be.
Cool, cool, you packed the court: the next governor gets to replace the people you added.
Cool, cool, you packed the court: the next governor gets to replace the people you added.
Expanding or reducing the size of a state court may or may not be good. It may or may not be corrupt. And it probably does tell us something about SCOTUS.... but.... what is that something? That's not a simple question!
I mean, would it be court-packing if terms were extended in a state which currently has a conservative court?
Because KY had a ballot measure to do exactly that this year.
Because KY had a ballot measure to do exactly that this year.
Is that court packing?
I don't think it is, because it's not nearly the level of institutional escalation. And indeed the fact that 20 states have tried it in 10 years strongly suggests these things are *not* similar!
I don't think it is, because it's not nearly the level of institutional escalation. And indeed the fact that 20 states have tried it in 10 years strongly suggests these things are *not* similar!
Across 230 years of existence, the court's size has changed 6 times. I know of two or three cases where there was an attempt to change the size and it failed; call it 10 cases over 230 years.
Oh man I'm about to shoot myself in the face here but what has begun cannot be stopped
So, that's an annual hazard of court packing of about 4.3%: 10/230.
What's the annual hazard of state court packing in the 10-year window sampled for this paper?
What's the annual hazard of state court packing in the 10-year window sampled for this paper?