Considering Obama's Predicament

There comes a time in everyone's life where all things come to an end. Unfortunately for former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, it was right in the middle of one of the most attention-grabbing presidential elections to date. Because of this, President Barack Obama has the option to fill the newly vacant seat on the Supreme Court. His only obstacle: the Republican leaders in Senate. The power these two political parties are wrestling over is none other than 1/9th of the judicial branch's influence on all things government, and the only way they can lose that is through personal resignation or death. Needless to say, something must be done to settle this stalemate. 

That is where Charles Silver (author of the opinion article "Obama's Supreme Court option? Grow the bench") comes in, as it would seem the man is on to quite the solution. In a nutshell, Silver proposes that the Supreme Court both be made larger (referencing 50 as a new possible amount) and incorporate new nominations (beginning with Obama's decisions). In theory, a larger judiciary body on the Supreme Court would lessen ideological and political bias. Likewise, it would deflate the heads of the, now numerous, Supreme Court Justices, thus taking away the incentive to stay in office until they need a paramedic.

The plan has a severe hole in it, however, which is essentially its fragility  to any possible disagreements in a case settlement. At that point, the Supreme Court would devolve into no more than another Congress. If one were able to cut the political ties from electing court justices, then this concept could very well be fool-proof. 

References: http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/opinion/silver-obamas-supreme-court-solution-expand-the-nu/nqXb4/?icmp=statesman_internallink_referralbox_free-to-premium-referral