When I get some time, maybe I'll do some statistical analysis, but intuitively it seems to me that having a Supreme Court of nine people with lifetime appointments results in a rather stagnant court, with a high probability of having disproportionate representation not only of things like gender and race, but even more significant, of legal thinking. Right now, we have four of the nine seats filled by men with very similar ideas, which significantly limits diversity of thinking. Worse, these seats may be occupied for years, preventing new ideas from reaching the court and possibly making the court's perspectives anachronistic as legal thinking evolves, but the court continues to be occupied by men with old, stale, and out-of-favor ideas.

Now some of this calcification is good--it prevents change from happening too rapidly--but maybe we should have some better balance between preserving the old and giving the new a voice?  And also bring more diversity in thinking and background to our court?

How about increasing the size of the court? Nothing in the constitution prevents that and the Democrats are powerful right now and so may be able to do this.  I suggest increasing it to 15, with 2 new seats opened during the Obama administration, and 2 new seats opened in each of the succeeding presidential administrations. (I know adding two seats during the Obama administration is a bit of a strong-arm tactic--the more politic thing to do would be to add the first two new seats in the next administration, but maybe the democrats should exert some muscle here? The republicans have been pushing them around for too long on these issues--hitting back might be healthy, actually, if not 100% fair.)

In addition to creating a more diverse and dynamic court, the addition of a few more justices might help ease the workload that weighs so heavily upon the current justices.

Let's hope the Democrats start thinking about this. It's a damn good way to spend some political capital.