Why Our Courts Are Political.

       Tom Toles, the Washington Post's cartoonist makes a great point with one of his latest cartoons. If you recall, the minority in the Senate is against President Obama appointing any more judges to the circuit court for the middle district for Washington, D.C. The Senate minority claims there are enough judges on the court already. It doesn't need more judges for the amount of work it does. So the cartoon asks the question; Exactly how many of you are there in Congress?
       Based on the amount of work that gets done by Congress, my guess would be three is all that's needed. Maybe two for the house and one for the Senate. You could call the rest advisors to the Congress. In fact, by doing that, we could eliminate all lobbyists because that would be a duplication of effort. After all, by having more than one source of advise would just confuse these leaders. In fact as a measure of cost savings, we could reduce Congress to two. One for the Senate and one for the House. After all, at the level of accomplishments currently being demonstrated, even that number may be too high.
       I read an article a while back that stated the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, as it is formally known, was the busiest of all the appellate courts. These courts act like State Supreme Courts for the Federal judicial system.
       The question is, why would a court that has operated with nine judges for most of the time, but is currently understaffed, that now has fewer judges with arguably more work than usual be deemed as having no need for the full court? You don't suppose politics has entered into the discussion do you? Now, having more or less judges wouldn't make a difference unless the current staff leans in one direction while the President, who would make appointments, leans in the other direction. But that would mean that those opposing more justices are doing so for political gain. If the status quo pleases them, and any new appointments probably wouldn't please them, well then....