As far as I understand the U.S. Constitution, Supreme Court justices
serve for life, but the number of Supreme Court justices can be changed
with an ordinary act of Congress.
So how does the Supreme Court have any power? While can't Congress
always credibly threaten "Say our laws are constitutional, or else we'll
add more justices who will!"?
Now of course, FDR tried "court-packing" in the 30's and lost serious
credibility. But if his policies were popular, why would it hurt his
popularity to add justices who would approve them?
Related puzzle: If I understood my reading yesterday, the President
actually needs a 2/3 Senate vote to approve his Supreme Court nominees.
So why is the President generally believed to have enormous control over
the selection process? Yes, the Senate normally approves any old warm
body. People who didn't like Bork often still got angry that the Senate
would have the nerve to reject him. But why isn't "Borking" the norm?
I don't have a full account here, but in both cases I detect a sort of
"delegation illusion" where principals pick agents to do their bidding,
but then disclaim any responsibility for their agents' actions - and
voters fall for it. But in these two examples we have the flip side of
the delegation illusion - when the principals *try* to exert the control
that the written rules give them, people get angry at them for
interfering with the agents' activities.
--
Prof. Bryan Caplan
Department of Economics George Mason University
http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"[T]he power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in
those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous."
-- Edward Gibbon, *The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire*
