Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking. Login or Take a Tour!
It's complicated.Leaving a seat open indefinitely may not seem like a big deal. After all, justices recuse themselves from time to time, and the Constitution doesn’t say anything about needing nine. But partisans should take note: Thanks to a wealth of recent Democratic appointments on the lower courts, letting the Supreme Court go down to eight justices would favor liberals. Conservatives wouldn’t like the regime of liberal rulings that would govern in most of the nation without Supreme Court oversight. And the prospect of liberal dominance may actually stiffen the spine of the historically more accommodating Senate Democrats.