Beyond that, what's to say the court doesn't just declare it unconstitutional.

We're well past them pretending they don't legislate from the bench, they're just striking down or upholding laws that they like at this point.

Unlikely to have legal teeth. For one, it's actually facially unconstitutional. First, the vesting clause of Article III states that the judicial power is vested in the Supreme Court. It also expresses that Congress may establish other courts. There's a statutory interpretation canon, expressio unius est exclusio alterius that essentially says that if you are speaking of a set of things ("courts") and say that something applies (congressional discretion) to a specific subset ("lower courts"), it implies that the remainder of that subset ("the supreme court") is exempt (cannot be regulated by congress).

Second, there's arguably already a constitutional process for regulating the ethics of SCOTUS ("good behavior"); however, the Constitution is silent on how it's enforced and in that vacuum SCOTUS's position is likely to be that they self-regulate.

I think, however, the public spectacle of it does have value. For one, SCOTUS (and the Republicans) are very concerned with the court losing legitimacy and a genuine consensus emerging that the court ought to be overhauled- whether that's Whitehouse's bill or a packing plan. It would be great propaganda for a future election for Democrats to say "hey, stop taking bribes" to justices currently taking bribes and for the court not to agree and say "you're right, no taking bribes" but instead to say "fuck you, you can't tell us what to do but also we're not taking bribes we promise".

Whitehouse's strategy here, especially since this would never pass the House, is to offer this as ammunition to Democrats running in 2024 showcasing the corruption of the Republican party.

That's the best question. Clarence Thomas shouldn't have been able to openly flaunt his corruption for decades, but he has. Is this just going to be more firm hand-wringing by the Dems with no enforcement mechanism whatsoever? At that point, it would be better to just recognize the court as illegitimate in the public eye as opposed to giving the false sense that it is in anyway ethical.

The courts have no way to enforce their rulings directly. Nothing is stopping Biden from ignoring them except for norms and the the real shitstorm it would cause.

Technically, if it does end up getting passed, it will theoretically have teeth. But then the Tribunal of Six will probably just say “it’s unconstitutional to hold us accountable”.

At that point, someone’s bound to infer something creative from the statement “supreme court justices are appointed for life” sooner or later.

My point being: if you halt any and all means of civil recourse that your citizens have, someone is going to dislike that enough that they will find a way around it that you will not like.

I complete agree with you, but dissolving the court would probably lead to a full-on civil war

I mean…. We have to scrap the whole thing. We all know it. Let’s stop dancing around it and start figuring out what the next thing is.

Reminds me of this quote I came across the other day about Marbury v Madison

Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Smith Adams, September 11, 1804, "but the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional, and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action, but for the legislature & executive also in their spheres, would make the judiciary a despotic branch."

Term limits are a great way to mitigate effects of judges. While an opposing party may control it for a time, it will end. Expansion does nothing to solve this, but may temporarily appear to. Until again, an opposing party elects judges to fill those seats you just added.

There should be term & age limits on all our representatives.

so what happens when republicans take back the Senate and the presidency and then add like 10 conservative justices to balance out the liberal ones

And when Republicans have control they pack it in their favor?

Be real for a sec…

100k is way too low of a number.

Ohh I was excited when you said flood the court. But you meant appoint more people

"Sorry, we heard Judge ______ handed a bottle of water to someone in a GA election line, gotta go!"

It would. And realistically you’d never expect todays ‘Pubs to be pro honesty or ethics so the chances of legislation to that effect passing is quiet low.