Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States
- ↑ See Frankfurter & Landis, supra note 8, at 73–76 (discussing the efforts of Senator Lyman Trumbull, R-IL, to establish a nine circuit-judge panel that would “ride circuit,” thus easing the circuit-riding burdens placed on Supreme Court Justices).
- ↑ Cong. Globe, 41st Cong., 1st Sess. 208–09 (1869) (statement of Sen. George Williams, R-OR); see Frankfurter & Landis, supra note 8, at 74–75.
- ↑ See Cong. Globe, 41st Cong., 1st Sess. 213–14 (1869) (statement of Sen. William Stewart, R-NV) (“The Constitution says there shall be one Supreme Court. You make a man a justice of that court and can you say that he shall not sit there after you have made him a justice of the Supreme Court? That raises a grave doubt.”); see also Id. at 210 (statement of Sen. Allen Thurman, D-OH) (“[W]hile I am inclined to think that the very best model of a court in the world is the French court of cassation, consisting of twenty-four judges divided into three sections, yet with my understanding of the Constitution of the United States it is not competent for us to provide such a system.”).
- ↑ Id. at 214–15 (statement of Sen. Lyman Trumbull, R-IL) (predicting that “such a law would be held unconstitutional by that court, and then you would have eighteen judges of your Supreme Court of the United States”).
- ↑ Id. at 215.
- ↑ See id. at 212 (statement of Sen. George Williams, R-OR) (stating that “this bill, reported from the Judiciary Committee, provides that six of the judges shall constitute a quorum. … [And t]here is nothing in the Constitution that restricts the power of Congress [to set a quorum for the Supreme Court]”); Id. at 217 (statement of Sen. George Edmunds, R-VT) (“[M]y friend says that the Constitution of the United States declares that there shall be one Supreme Court. I agree to that; but it does not declare how it shall be composed … . It leaves … that to general principles of legislation, where it ought to be left.”).
- ↑ See id. at 216 (statement of Sen. George Edmunds, R-VT) (noting that, under current law, “only a majority of th[e Court’s] quorum are necessary to make a decision. … Do you find that when the whole number get together at the next meeting of the court they reverse that [decision]? Not by any means.”).
- ↑ See id. at 213 (statement of Sen. William Stewart, R-NV) (“[W]e can fix the quorum. But that does not meet the point. After you have fixed the quorum, the question arises, have not all the justices of the Supreme Court the right to sit there all the time?”); Id. at 215 (statement of Sen. Lyman Trumbull, R-IL) (agreeing with this point and noting that “a law that should declare that the rest of the Senate besides the quorum had no right to vote and participate in [its] decisions would be utterly void”).
- ↑ See Frankfurter & Landis, supra note 8, at 75–76 (noting Congress instead passed a proposal by Senator Lyman Trumbull, R-IL, for additional circuit judges).
- ↑ See Eugene Gressman, Requiem for the Supreme Court’s Obligatory Jurisdiction, 65 A.B.A. J. 1325, 1327 (1979).
- ↑ Frankfurter & Landis, supra note 8, at 60–61 (noting that, from 1850 to 1890, the Court’s docket grew from 253 to 1,816 cases); see H.R. Rep. No. 51-1295, at 3 (1890) (noting that, according to Justice Harlan, the Court disposed of 451 out of 1,396 cases on its docket in 1886).
- ↑ See Evarts Act, ch. 517, §§ 1, 2, 5–6, 26 Stat. 826, 826–28 (1891) (authorizing discretionary review over cases from new appellate courts involving diversity, revenue laws, patent laws, federal criminal laws, and admiralty law). For discussions of the history behind this law, see Tara Leigh Grove, The Exceptions Clause as a Structural Safeguard, 113 Colum. L. Rev. 929, 948–50, 952–59 (2013); Edward A. Hartnett, Questioning Certiorari: Some Reflections Seventy-Five Years After the Judges’ Bill, 100 Colum. L. Rev. 1643, 1649–57 (2000).
- ↑ S. Rep. No. 51-1571, at 3–5 (1890) (describing the views of a minority of senators).
- ↑ Id. at 3.
- ↑ See U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 2 (“In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”); S. Rep. No. 51-1571, at 3 (“It is true that
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