The Constitutions says that there shall be a supreme court, but says nothing about how many justices there shall be . Why are there 9 justices? Could the President put as many justices on the Court as he wished as long as the Senate went along? We all have heard of FDR supposedly threatening to “pack” the court. Could there be fifty justices on the supreme court? Theoretically, that is. Why not?
Yup.
The court could have plenty of justices, but for two problems:
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The Senate would have to confirm all of these extra judges, and all of the Senators would have to agree with the president’s notion of extra judges. If the President didn’t have a really good explanation, then the Senate wouldn’t either, and the Senators would fear losing support/elections if they went along with the President’s plan.
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The Supreme Court itself would probably rule the attempt to pack the court unacceptable and deny it legitimacy. I haven’t studied enough law yet to figure out HOW they’d do it, but I do know that they would find a way. (Especially O’Connor and Rehnquist–they’d puke if something like this happened.)
My WAGs…
Akash
Actually, under the current rules of the Senate, 61 Senators can do pretty much as they please. They don’t all have to agree. Clarence Thomas was confirmed even though an extraordinary number of Senators voted “no”.
The Supreme Court would not be in a position to rule packing the court to be “unacceptable”. It would have to cite the constitutional basis for its ruling.
In fact, the very first supreme court, which met in New York City, had only six justices. By 1869 it was up to nine. FDR tried to impliment a plan to eventually get it up to 15 justices for some reason, but I don’t think anything ever came of it.
The number of justices on the court is set by law, not just an agreement between president and senate. The Judiciary Act of 1789 set the number at 6. Later it was changed to 5 then 6 then 7, 9, 10, 7, and finally 9 again in 1869 where it has been ever since. The time the number was reduced from 10 to 7, I don’t think anybody was kicked off the court. I think they waited until 3 justice died or resigned and they just didn’t fill the vacancies.
In 1937, FDR tried to “pack” the court by proposing the number of justices be increased to 15, because the court had been declaring his New Deal programs to be unconstitutional. Two of the sitting justices quickly changed their opinion of the New Deal so FDR and his supporters in Congress no longer saw the need to pack the court. This was called “the switch in time that saved nine.” 
The 1869 shrinkage of the Supreme Court was spurred by Congress’s hatred of President Andrew Johnson. There was no way that the Radical Republicans wanted him to appoint any Supreme Court justices, so they just passed a law that eliminated a few seats after the justices retired or died.
And I’m sure they could find one.