Federal Judicial Balance and Accountability Act¶
Foundational Principles¶
Published February 2026¶
Based on Rev 2.2 of the Federal Judicial Balance and Accountability Act
Introduction: Pre-Constitutional Commitments¶
The Federal Judicial Balance and Accountability Act (FJBAA), hereafter "the Act," rests on foundational principles that exist prior to and independent of constitutional text. These are normative commitments about how a just legal system ought to function -- commitments that any well-designed judiciary should honor regardless of the particular constitutional framework within which it operates.
The intellectual work of judicial reform is fitting these pre-constitutional commitments into constitutional structure. The Constitution provides constraints and mechanisms; the principles provide direction and purpose. Where the current system fails to honor foundational principles despite constitutional permission to do better, reform is warranted. Where constitutional text constrains how principles can be realized, reform must work within those constraints.
This document articulates the foundational principles underlying the Act, distinguishes them from constitutional mechanisms, and explains how the Act realizes the former within the latter.
The Foundational Principles¶
Equality¶
Citizens should have equal access to federal justice regardless of where they reside. The quality of judicial services -- case processing times, docket congestion, access to appellate review -- should not vary systematically based on geography. A litigant in one region should not face structural disadvantages compared to a litigant in another.
Current failure: The existing circuit system creates population disparities approaching 5:1. The Ninth Circuit serves over 68 million people; the First Circuit serves under 14 million. These disparities produce unequal workloads, inconsistent case processing, and fundamentally unequal access to federal justice.
The Act's response: Population-based circuits ensure approximately equal populations served by each regional circuit, with a tolerance band of plus or minus 10%. Federal judicial districts serve as building blocks for circuit construction, prioritizing state unity while permitting division along existing district boundaries where population equity requires it. A structured five-year compliance assessment cycle -- authoritative assessments after each decennial census and interim assessments using American Community Survey data -- maintains equality as populations shift, with a tiered response framework triggering mandatory rebalancing when degradation reaches a level that undermines the Act's equity principles.
Fairness¶
The distribution of power and opportunity within the judicial system should follow principled rules rather than arbitrary factors. Presidential influence over the Court's composition should not depend on actuarial luck. The honor of leading the federal judiciary should not be a lottery prize distributed by chance. Career structures should be predictable and apply equally to all who serve.
Current failure: Some presidents appoint four justices; others appoint none -- based entirely on when sitting justices happen to die or retire. The Chief Justice position goes to whomever a president selects when a vacancy happens to occur, potentially concentrating power in one individual for decades. Justices face impossible choices about retirement timing based on partisan calculations.
The Act's response: Regular appointment schedules give each presidential term exactly five opportunities at steady state. Shared Co-Chief Justice leadership ensures every justice who completes a full term serves as Co-Chief Justice during their capstone years. The three-phase career structure applies equally to all justices appointed under the Act. Slate-based nomination with Bloc STAR voting replaces the binary confirmation model, transforming the Senate's role from adversarial gatekeeping into collaborative selection.
Balance¶
Power should be distributed rather than concentrated. No single actor -- whether a president, a political party, or an individual justice -- should accumulate disproportionate influence over constitutional interpretation through structural advantage rather than democratic mandate.
Current failure: A president who happens to face multiple vacancies shapes the Court for a generation while another leaves no mark. A Chief Justice appointed young may lead the federal judiciary for thirty or forty years, accumulating administrative power through statutory accretion. Court size bears no principled relationship to judicial administration.
The Act's response: Court composition aligns with circuit organization, providing a principled basis for size that constrains manipulation. Shared Co-Chief Justice leadership limits any individual's administrative tenure to two years and distributes leadership among multiple peers simultaneously. Phased expansion distributes appointments across multiple administrations. Vacancy coverage and appointment equalization protect the balanced schedule from disruption.
Accountability¶
Those who exercise judicial power should be bound by enforceable standards of conduct. Self-policing without structural enforcement is insufficient. Accountability mechanisms must be meaningful without threatening the independence necessary for impartial adjudication.
Current failure: The Supreme Court is the only court in the federal system without binding ethical rules or meaningful enforcement mechanisms. Justices decide for themselves whether they have violated ethical standards and face no structural consequences if they conclude they have not. Public confidence erodes as controversies over undisclosed gifts, travel, and financial relationships accumulate without resolution.
The Act's response: The Code of Conduct for United States Judges becomes mandatory for Supreme Court justices. An Ethics Review Panel of Senior Justices adjudicates complaints. An independent Judicial Inspector General investigates alleged violations. A graduated menu of sanctions provides proportionate responses. Structural safeguards -- supermajority requirements, enumerated violations, due process protections -- prevent weaponization while ensuring meaningful accountability.
Dignity¶
Judicial officers who have devoted careers to public service deserve to be treated with respect. The system should not subject aging jurists to morbid speculation about their health, force impossible choices between strategic retirement and clinging to office, or make the nation's constitutional future dependent on whether an elderly justice survives another administration.
Current failure: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's final years illustrated the pathology vividly -- her health became a matter of intense national anxiety, her every hospital visit triggered speculation about the Court's future, and her death precipitated constitutional crisis. This is not a dignified way to treat distinguished jurists, and it is not a healthy dynamic for the republic.
The Act's response: The three-phase career structure removes the nation's constitutional future from dependence on individual justices' health and longevity. Every justice knows exactly what their career arc will look like. Transition to Senior Justice status occurs on schedule, not when declining health forces impossible choices. When a Senior Justice's health declines or they pass away, it is a personal loss -- not a constitutional emergency. The model already exists in practice: Justices Souter, Breyer, and O'Connor all transitioned from active Supreme Court service to hearing cases on lower federal courts -- continued judicial service widely regarded as dignified and valuable, not as diminishment.
Predictability¶
Institutional arrangements should be stable and knowable in advance. Actors within the system -- justices, presidents, senators, litigants -- should be able to anticipate how the system will operate rather than facing uncertainty that invites strategic manipulation.
Current failure: No one knows when Supreme Court vacancies will occur. Confirmation norms shift unpredictably -- the Garland blockade, the Barrett confirmation. Justices game retirement timing based on partisan calculations. The system rewards those who exploit uncertainty and punishes those who rely on informal expectations.
The Act's response: Regular appointment schedules make vacancy timing knowable years in advance. The three-phase career structure eliminates uncertainty about individual justices' tenure. Mandatory Senate consideration timelines and slate-based nomination prevent indefinite obstruction. Circuit compliance assessments occur on predictable five-year cycles.
Diffusion of Power¶
Concentrated power invites abuse; distributed power promotes accountability. Leadership responsibilities should rotate rather than accumulate. The system should be designed so that no single individual becomes indispensable or irreplaceable.
Current failure: The Chief Justice accumulates administrative power over decades -- chairing the Judicial Conference, appointing judges to specialized courts, managing budget requests, serving as the public face of the federal judiciary. These powers, accumulated through statutory accretion rather than constitutional design, concentrate in one person based on actuarial chance.
The Act's response: Shared Co-Chief Justice leadership ensures administrative power is distributed among multiple justices simultaneously during their capstone years rather than concentrated in a single individual for decades. Every justice who completes a full term leads the Court. Administrative continuity is provided by the Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, not by decades-long individual tenure. The honor and responsibility of leadership are democratized among equals.
Principled Derivation¶
Institutional arrangements should follow from articulated principles applied to factual circumstances, not from arbitrary selection of convenient numbers. When asked "why this structure?", the answer should trace back to principles and evidence rather than political convenience.
Current failure: Why nine justices? The number reflects an 1869 statute, itself a product of post-Civil War political maneuvering. It bears no principled relationship to current judicial administration. Proposals to change the number invite suspicion precisely because no principled basis constrains what number might be chosen.
The Act's response: Fifteen circuits derive mathematically from population equity constraints and geographic contiguity requirements -- the minimum number of circuits that satisfies the principles. Fifteen justices correspond to fifteen regional circuits, restoring the historical relationship between circuit organization and Court size. The number was not chosen; it was derived. Critics cannot plausibly argue the number was selected to achieve partisan balance because it follows from principled application to demographic reality.
Constitutional Constraints¶
The principles articulated above are pre-constitutional commitments. Realizing them requires working within constitutional structure. Article III and related provisions establish the constraints within which judicial reform must operate.
Tenure Protection¶
Article III provides that judges "shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour." This protects judicial independence by preventing removal of judges for decisions that displease the political branches. Any reform must preserve this protection.
The Act's approach: Drawing on constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar's framework, the Act distinguishes between regulating judicial duties (constitutionally permissible) and terminating judicial tenure (constitutionally prohibited). The three-phase career structure changes duty assignments -- when justices perform Supreme Court duties versus other judicial duties -- without removing any justice from judicial office. Senior Justices retain Article III status, life tenure, full salary, and the ability to perform judicial functions. The precedent of senior status under 28 U.S.C. Section 371 -- operating for over a century and already applicable to Supreme Court justices, as demonstrated by Justices Souter, O'Connor, Breyer, and Clark -- confirms this mechanism's constitutional validity.
Compensation Protection¶
Article III provides that judicial compensation "shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office." This prevents financial pressure on judges. Any reform must maintain judicial salaries.
The Act's approach: No salary is reduced. Senior Justices receive full compensation. The Act explicitly preserves this constitutional protection.
Impeachment as Ultimate Accountability¶
The Constitution provides impeachment as the mechanism for removing judges who do not maintain "good Behaviour." This congressional power cannot be supplanted by alternative removal mechanisms.
The Act's approach: Title V explicitly preserves congressional impeachment authority. The Ethics Review Panel may refer matters to the House for impeachment consideration but cannot itself remove a justice from judicial office. Mandatory Early Transition changes duty status (from active service to Senior Justice), not tenure -- the justice continues to hold Article III office.
Appointments Clause¶
Article II vests appointment power in the President with Senate advice and consent. Reforms cannot circumvent this process for filling judicial offices.
The Act's approach: Every justice is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The shared Co-Chief Justice model does not require new appointment because each justice has already been appointed to the Court -- the Co-Chief Justice designation merely reassigns duties among already-appointed justices, paralleling how circuit court chief judges assume that position by seniority under existing law. The President retains a role through designation of the Ceremonial Chief Justice from among serving Co-Chief Justices.
Congressional Authority Over Judicial Organization¶
Article III grants Congress authority to "ordain and establish" inferior courts and, implicitly, to organize the judicial system. Congress has changed Supreme Court size seven times and reorganized circuits repeatedly.
The Act's approach: The Act exercises this established congressional authority. Circuit reorganization, Court size, transparency requirements, and ethics enforcement all fall within Congress's recognized power to structure the federal judiciary.
Impartial Adjudication: The Underlying Commitment¶
One principle requires special treatment: impartial adjudication, or the rule of law. This is the foundational commitment that judicial independence serves. Independence is not an end in itself but a means to ensure that judges decide cases based on law and facts rather than political pressure or personal interest.
The Constitution's mechanisms -- life tenure, salary protection, the difficulty of removal -- exist to serve impartial adjudication. Other democracies achieve fair courts through different mechanisms (term limits, mandatory retirement ages, different appointment processes). The constitutional mechanism is one way to honor the underlying commitment, not the only possible way.
This distinction matters because it clarifies what judicial independence protects against (political retaliation for decisions) and what it does not require (unlimited active service, freedom from ethical accountability, perpetual concentration of administrative power). The Act preserves independence in the constitutionally required sense -- no justice can be punished for judicial opinions, votes, or legal interpretations -- while honoring other foundational principles that the current system neglects.
Fitting Principles to Structure¶
The intellectual achievement of the Act is demonstrating that the foundational principles can be realized within constitutional constraints. Each major provision represents a solution to the problem of fitting pre-constitutional commitments into constitutional structure:
| Principle | Constitutional Constraint | The Act's Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Equality | Congress controls judicial organization | Population-based circuits with five-year compliance assessment cycle |
| Fairness | Presidential appointment power | Regular schedule giving each term five appointments; slate-based selection |
| Balance | No fixed Court size in Constitution | Size tied to circuit organization (principled ceiling); vacancy coverage and equalization |
| Accountability | Impeachment as removal mechanism; tenure protection | Ethics enforcement through duty regulation, not tenure termination |
| Dignity | Life tenure requirement | Three-phase career structure with scheduled transition |
| Predictability | Appointments require nomination and confirmation | Scheduled transitions create knowable vacancy timing; mandatory Senate timelines |
| Diffusion | Chief Justice mentioned in Constitution | Shared Co-Chief Justice leadership as duty assignment among appointed justices |
| Principled Derivation | Congress has discretion over structure | Mathematical derivation from equity constraints; circuit count adjustment follows same methodology |
The current system's pathologies are not constitutionally required. The Constitution permits population-imbalanced circuits, arbitrary appointment timing, concentrated Chief Justice power, and ethics-free Supreme Court operation -- but it does not mandate them. Where the Constitution permits better arrangements that honor foundational principles, reform is warranted.
Conclusion¶
The Act is not primarily a response to particular Court decisions or the ideological composition of the current bench. It addresses structural deficiencies that would concern any observer regardless of which party benefits at any given moment. The foundational principles -- equality, fairness, balance, accountability, dignity, predictability, diffusion of power, principled derivation -- transcend partisan divisions. They represent what a well-functioning judiciary should look like under any constitutional system.
The Act's claim to legitimacy rests on this foundation. It does not seek to achieve particular case outcomes or entrench partisan advantage. It seeks to realize principles that the current system fails to honor, within the constraints that the Constitution establishes. This is the work of institutional engineering: identifying what justice requires, understanding what structure permits, and designing mechanisms that fit the former into the latter.
Revision History¶
Revision 2.2 (Current) - Updated reference line to reflect FJBAA Rev 2.2; updated publication date to February 2026 - Updated Equality principle: replaced "decennial rebalancing" with five-year compliance assessment cycle, district-level building blocks, and tiered response framework - Updated Fairness principle: replaced "each presidential term exactly two opportunities" with five appointments per term at steady state; replaced "automatic Chief Justice rotation" with shared Co-Chief Justice leadership; added slate-based nomination with Bloc STAR voting - Updated Balance principle: replaced "Chief Justice rotation limits any individual's tenure in that role to two years" with shared Co-Chief Justice leadership model; added vacancy coverage and appointment equalization - Updated Predictability principle: replaced "decennial circuit rebalancing" with five-year compliance assessment cycle; added slate-based nomination as anti-obstruction mechanism - Updated Diffusion of Power principle: replaced "automatic Chief Justice rotation" with shared Co-Chief Justice leadership distributing administrative power among multiple peers simultaneously; added Judicial Conference role in administrative continuity - Updated Appointments Clause (Constitutional Constraints): replaced "automatic Chief Justice rotation" with Co-Chief Justice model; added Ceremonial Chief Justice presidential designation - Updated Fitting Principles to Structure table: Equality row for five-year assessment cycle; Fairness row for five appointments per term and slate-based selection; Balance row for vacancy coverage and equalization; Predictability row for mandatory Senate timelines; Diffusion row for shared Co-Chief Justice leadership; Principled Derivation row for circuit count adjustment methodology
Revision 1.7 - Updated reference line to reflect FJBAA Rev 1.7 - Added SCOTUS-specific Section 371 precedent to Dignity principle (Souter, Breyer, O'Connor as living examples) - Updated Tenure Protection section to note Section 371 already applies to Supreme Court justices specifically, citing Clark, Souter, O'Connor, and Breyer
Revision 1.6 - Updated to reflect FJBAA Rev 1.6 - Changed "qualification requirements" to "transparency requirements" in Congressional Authority section
Revision 1.5 - Initial publication based on FJBAA Rev 1.5
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Prepared by Albert Ramos for The American Policy Architecture Institute