Pass amendment to keep 9 justices

THE “KEEP 9” op-ed in Sunday’s (Sept. 13) Journal advocating for the constitutional amendment “The Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine justices” is right on target.

This amendment is badly needed to prevent “courtpacking” by any future president, which is a potential scenario for any president whose political party also holds a majority in the U.S. Senate, since the majority party in the Senate can change the Senate rules to allow the Senate to confirm Supreme Court appointments with a simple majority vote. President Franklin Roosevelt tried it and failed, but it is pretty easy to imagine this happening in the current political climate.

A simple majority vote in the Senate — including the vice president — is a very low standard for any lifetime appointment, and by adding the phrase “each to be confirmed by no less than a two-thirds majority of the members of the Senate” to the Keep 9 amendment, would help to ensure that we don’t end up with a Supreme Court defined only by a single party.

The issues of recusal and illness that currently exist should also be addressed, perhaps by adding language such as “A justice shall not participate in any decision where a conflict of interest or serious illness prevents a justice from making a fair and impartial judgment, which shall be determined by no less than a two-thirds majority vote of the sitting justices.”

The Supreme Court is the last court of resort for the protection of citizens who are in the minority, and this protection is at risk whenever one political party holds the presidency and a majority in both the House and Senate. We need these changes to ensure that the United States doesn’t end up in the situation where a single party in the majority can control our political process. If that should occur, we will cease to be a democracy, but rather become an autocracy.

ED BIRNBAUM Los Alamos