Why do we need nine Supreme Court justices? How about seven? Five? Three?

Our friends in the media and on the left are up in arms that we haven’t filled the Supreme Court seat vacated by Scalia. The reality is that there is no requirement that the court have nine members. The reality is that Congress gets to decide how many members are seated and Congress has changed their mind several times. First they decided there should be six members (they didn’t really consider the whole concept of “ties”). Then they increased the number to seven. Then to nine. Then to ten. Then back to seven to prevent Andrew Johnson from appointing anyone to the court. After he left office they increased the number to nine. FDR tried to get Congress to increase the court to fifteen justices — Congress decided to keep the number at nine. So stop freaking out. Everything will be fine. Perhaps when another justice steps down we’ll just keep it at seven. That actually works. Enjoy!