You might have a lot of ties until another justice left. You also might have the justices learn how to issue more restrained opinions that they can get 5 to agree to. It would also likely accelerate a Justice like Ginsburg's exit. If she knew she wouldn't be replaced and that her leaving would let the court gain an odd number again, she might go ahead and step down. This sort of thinking, it seems to me, is a lot closer to the type of gridlock seeking mindset that has led the American people to hate and distrust government to such a level that has led to the rise of Donald Trump as an alternative to such uber partisan politics.
People like to get on their Constitutional high horse and say the Senate should do their Constitutional duty. Do you also know it's the President's Constitutional duty to take advice from the Senate on the nominee? If Obama was really doing things to the letter of the Constitution he would have met with Senate leadership and had them give him names they would find acceptable. Of course the advice part is generally ignored. The Senate is too often seen as a rubber stamp for nominees instead of a legitimate check on the President's power. ---I'm not sure who you're referring to, but personally I'm not much of an equestrian. As for who's on a "high horse" I'd have to say Senate Repubs for the last 5+ years. Should the president seek and listen to the advice of those in the Senate? Absolutely!! But wouldn't they have to actually talk to him for the first time in years to offer him any advice? What I"m seeing here, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be wanting SCOTUS to work more the way you want them to work (which seems to be much more to the right) than you do to just get them to work "better across the board"? And if this is the case what fairly recent SCOTUS decision do you consider to be a far left decision, especially considering that until Scalia's death there were 5 conservatives and 4 liberals on the court?
Also, if we're discussing Constitutional duties, there's a good argument to be made that the entire court has long since abandoned it's constitutional duty to decide cases under the law and has long become an unelected legislature. Decisions too often read like legislative findings with Justices discussing the best outcome for society instead of the dictates of the law. I don't totally disagree with this, legislating from the bench is not what, IMO, the founding fathers had in mind, but let's be honest here, if SCOTUS really was acting like a legislature that would give us ONE actual legislature instead of the gridlocked bunch of 4 year olds who didn't get the toy they wanted in Wal Mart today that we've had since 2010. I'm not a fan of all of Obama's executive actions by any means, but be honest and tell me what W/Cheney would have done if a Dem Congress would have simply told him "No, talk to the hand" for 5 straight years and tried to overturn any of his ideas or programs over 50 times, failing each time?
Branches performing their constitutional duties is a thing of the past. Shouts about it are nothing more than attempts to gain moral high ground and score points with voters. We've reached the point where Presidents are ordering laws to not be enforced in spite of the fact that the President actually swears to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. The system is broken. Again I agree with parts of what you're saying here, but while I totally agree with you in that the system is broken you SEEM to only be wanting parts of it fixed, not to repair the entire system. And again if I"m misunderstanding you by all means correct me. I really am only trying to get a grasp on your mindset and overall political philosophy.
FDR wanted to raise the number of justices so he could select ones amiable to his New Deal programs. You ended up with the "Switch in Time that Saved Nine." One of the justices (I can't remember who) switched sides and started voting to uphold New Deal programs so the number was left at 9. Back in the day, presidents, members of Congress, the justices of SCOTUS, etc., would tend to wake up and be mindful of their actions and their true intentions when they felt the "camera of history" was recording them, this I would say was the #1 reason why the 13th amendment got the 2/3 vote in Congress it needed back in 1865. When the proposed amendment went to a vote that morning I will guarantee you Lincoln did NOT feel overly confident in how things were going to turn out, since racism was just as rampant in the north as it was in the south. He had only hoped (and as it turns out rightly so) that the members of Congress would realize that their actions were going to be recorded by a higher power than their constituents back home. When FDR threatened to expand the court back in the mid 1930s, neither that SCOTUS nor Congress at the time was crazy about the idea, and Congress was much more aligned with FDR than they were with that Repub packed court. They simply realized what their partisan actions were about to cause them to be recorded by history for those actions and that it certainly would lessen the "dignity of the court". Or, it could have been the failure of the Liberty League's little attempted coup.
