The SCOTUS Reform Syllabus
The following readings provide a collection of academic work on SCOTUSReform. Use them to teach a class of your own!
Why Have Courts?
Mark Tushnet, Forms of Judicial Review as Expressions of Constitutional Patriotism, 22 L. & Phil. 353 (2003) [JSTOR]
Jeremy Waldron, The Core of the Case Against Judicial Review, 115 Yale L.J. 1346 (2006) [Yale]
Origins of Our Current System
Vicki C. Jackson, Packages of Judicial Independence: The Selection and Tenure of Article III Judges, 95 Geo. L.J. 965 (2007) [HeinOnline]
Michael J. Mazza, A New Look at an Old Debate: Life Tenure and the Article III Judge, 39 Gonz. L. Rev. 131 (2004) [Gonzaga]
Term Limits and the Supreme Court Lottery
Roger C. Cramton, Reforming the Supreme Court, 95 Cal. L. Rev. 1313 (2007) [Cornell]
Steven G. Calabresi & James Lindgren, Term Limits for the Supreme Court: Life Tenure Reconsidered, 29 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 769 (2006) [SSRN]
Mary L. Clark, Judicial Retirement and Return to Practice, 60 Cath. U. L. Rev. 841 (2011) [Catholic University]
Ryan C. Black & Amanda C. Bryan, The Policy Consequences of Term Limits on the U.S. Supreme Court, 42 Ohio N.U. L. Rev. 821 (2016) [SSRN]
David J. Garrow, Mental Decrepitude on the U.S. Supreme Court: The Historical Case for a 28th Amendment, 67 U. Chi. L. Rev. 995 (2000) [Chicago]
Daniel Epps & Ganesh Sitaraman, How to Save the Supreme Court, 129 Yale L.J. 148 (2019) [SSRN]
John O. McGinnis, Justice without Justices, 16 Const. Comment. 541 (1999) [Minnesota]
Changing the Court’s Size
Todd N. Tucker, Off-Balance Five Strategies for a Judiciary That Supports Democracy, Roosevelt Institute (2018) [Roosevelt Institute, p.10-16, 38]
Daniel E. Ho & Kevin M. Quinn, Did A Switch in Time Save Nine?, 2 J. Legal Analysis 69 (2010) [Berkeley]
Laura A. Cisneros, Transformative Properties of FDR’s Court-Packing Plan and the Significance of Symbol, 15 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 61 (2012) [UPenn]
Joshua Braver, Court Packing: An American Tradition?, B.C. L. Rev. (Forthcoming 2020) [SSRN]
Partisan Balance and the Balanced Bench
Eric J. Segall, Eight Justices Are Enough: A Proposal to Improve the United States Supreme Court, 45 Pepp. L. Rev. 547 (2018) [Pepperdine]
Daniel Epps & Ganesh Sitaraman, How to Save the Supreme Court, 129 Yale L.J. 148 (2019) [SSRN]
Supreme Court Voting Rules
Jeremy Waldron, Five to Four: Why Do Bare Majorities Rule on Courts?, 123 Yale L.J. 1692 (2014) [Yale]
Jed Handelsman Shugerman, A Six-Three Rule: Reviving Consensus and Deference on the Supreme Court, 37 Ga. L. Rev. 893, 894 (2003) [HeinOnline]
Evan H. Caminker, Thayerian Deference to Congress and Supreme Court Supermajority Rule: Lessons from the Past, 78 IND. L.J. 73 (2003) [Michigan]
Ryan D. Doerfler & Samuel Moyn, Democratizing the Supreme Court, 109 Calif. L. Rev. (Forthcoming 2020) [SSRN]
Andrew K. Jennings & Athul K. Acharya, The Supreme Court and the 117th Congress, Calif. L. Rev. (Forthcoming 2020) [SSRN]
Jurisdiction Stripping
Henry M. Hart, Jr., The Power of Congress to Limit the Jurisdiction of Federal Courts: An Exercise in Dialectic, 66 Harv. L. Rev. 1362 (1953) [JSTOR]
Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Jurisdiction-Stripping Reconsidered, 96 Va. L. Rev. 1043 (2010) [Virginia]
Sarah Herman Peck, Cong. Research Serv., R44967, Congress’s Power over Courts: Jurisdiction Stripping and the Rule of Klein (2018) [CRS]
Mark Agrast, Judge Roberts and the Court-Stripping Movement, Center for Am. Progress (Sept. 12, 2005) [CAP]
Memo from Ted Olson to Attorney General William French, April 12, 1982 [WaPo]
Memo by John Roberts [WaPo]
Ryan D. Doerfler & Samuel Moyn, Democratizing the Supreme Court, 109 Calif. L. Rev. (Forthcoming 2020) [SSRN]
Andrew K. Jennings & Athul K. Acharya, The Supreme Court and the 117th Congress, Calif. L. Rev. (Forthcoming 2020) [SSRN]
Christopher Jon Sprigman, Congress's Article III Power and the Process of Constitutional Change, 95 N.Y.U. L. Rev. (Forthcoming 2020) [SSRN]
The Legislative Override
Nicholas Stephanopoulos, The Case for the Legislative Override, 10 UCLA J. Int'l L. & Foreign Aff. 250 (2005) [Chicago]
Mark Tushnet, Dialogic Judicial Review, 61 Ark. L. Rev. 205 (2008) [HeinOnline]
Christine Bateup, The Dialogic Promise Assessing the Normative Potential of Theories of Constitutional Dialogue, 71 Brook. L. Rev. 1109 (2006) [Brooklyn]
Methods of Judicial Selection
Lauren C. Bell, Federal Judicial Selection in History and Scholarship, 96 Judicature 296 (2013) [HeinOnline]
Theodore Voorhees, It's Time for Merit Selection of Supreme Court Justices, 61 Am. Bar Assoc. J. 705 (1975) [JSTOR]
Lee Epstein, Jack Knight & Olga Shvetsova, Comparing Judicial Selection Systems, 10 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 7 (2001) [Duke]
Judith Resnik, Judicial Selection and Democratic Theory: Demand, Supply, and Life Tenure, 26 Cardozo L. Rev. 579 (2005) [Yale]
Adrian Vermeule, Should We Have Lay Justices?, 59 Stan. L. Rev 1569 (2007) [Stanford]
Constitutional Hardball
Mark Tushnet, Constitutional Hardball, 37 J. Marshall L. Rev. 523 (2004) [Georgetown]
Joseph Fishkin & David E. Pozen, Asymmetric Constitutional Hardball, 118 Colum. L. Rev. 915 (2018) [Columbia]
Jed Handelsman Shugerman, Constitutional Hardball vs. Beanball: Identifying Fundamentally Antidemocratic Tactics, 119 Colum. L. Rev. Online (2019) [SSRN]
The Role of Conventions and Norms
Tara Leigh Grove, The Origins (and Fragility) of Judicial Independence, 71 Vand. L. Rev. 465 (2018) [SSRN]
Mark Tushnet, The Pirate’s Code: Constitutional Conventions In U.S. Constitutional Law, 45 Pepp. L. Rev. 481 (2018) [Pepperdine]
Curtis A. Bradley & Neil S. Siegel, Historical Gloss, Constitutional Conventions, and the Judicial Separation of Powers, 105 Geo. L.J. 255 (2017) [Duke]