[20201214]LSB10562_“法院包装”：对最高法院规模的立法控制.pdf

CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i “Court Packing”: Legislative Control over the Size of the Supreme Court December 14, 2020 In the past year, legal commentators, policymakers, and the national press have devoted significant attention to proposals to increase the size of the Supreme Court, sometimes colloquially called “court packing.” Many recent court expansion proposals are premised on the belief that, if more seats were added to the Supreme Court, it would give the President who nominates the new Justices significant power to shape the Court in a way that aligns with the policy preferences of the President and the controlling political party. The Constitution generally grants Congress control over the size and structure of the federal courts and, during the first century of the Republic, Congress enacted multiple statutes changing the size of the Supreme Court. However, since the Reconstruction era, the Courts size has been set at nine Justices. The last notable attempt to enlarge the Court occurred in 1937, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelts Administration proposed legislation broadly viewed as an effort to ma