Scott Green

Here are two facts that seem, on their face, unrelated:

1. Speculation is ramping up about which Supreme Court justices might die or retire this year, and who could replace them.

2. “American Idol” is still the top rated show in America.

I think you see where I’m going with this: The justices should beat Simon Cowell to death with their gavels.

If that’s not practical, we could hold open auditions and let viewers at home decide who advances to the nation’s highest bench, under the theory we couldn’t do much worse than the Court’s current membership.

Justice mortality is a serious topic, one that would also make an excellent name for a Bond girl. Consider this recent quote from U.S. Senator Jim Bunning (R-You Kidding Me), who told reporters in February – I swear he really said this – that “Ruth Bader Ginsburg… has cancer… nine months is the longest anyone [with that kind of cancer] would live.”

Of course Bunning later insisted he didn’t mean to say this. He meant to give Ginsburg six months. But the important thing is, unlike the rest of us, these justices aren’t getting any younger. John Paul Stevens, for example, presided over the Salem Witch Trials.

So a number of justices could very possibly die in the near future, though it’d still be a few years before they’d have less brain functionality than Jim Bunning. That’s why it’s imperative we have a plan for replacing them.

I admit that the Constitution lays out a system for this, but it’s a system that’s clearly broken. Here I quote directly from Article III, Section 1, word five: “the.” Also, from Article VIII, Section 4: “The President shall nominate some weenie judge nobody has ever heard of, and the senate shall hold hearings into whether said nominee has ever done anything more controversial than rolling through a stop sign.”

Consider the reasons some nominees from the past 25 years weren’t confirmed by the Senate:

Harriet Miers (2005): Thought George W. Bush was a good president

Douglas Ginsburg (1987): While smoking marijuana with his Harvard law students, drooled too much on the joint

Robert Bork (1987): Admitted, under oath, that he held personal opinions

So the old system is flawed. This brings me to my second point: “American Idol” is still tops in the ratings, despite being the exact same show it was when it debuted seven years ago.

Oh, sure, they added a new judge, and one of the contestants this season is named “Anoop.” But this isn’t enough to make the show relevant again, despite its viewership. You can ask any of the losers, most of whom can’t handle the music industry after their seasons end. It’s something I think about every time Justin Guarini squeegees my windshield.

That’s why this is the perfect time for the show to switch its format from music to law. The process would start with the early rounds, wherein over-eager Supreme Court hopefuls – the ones who give truly awful, over-the-top interpretations of the due process clause – have their lifelong dreams shattered for our amusement. “I’m just not buying your argument for standard of review, and your use of the rational basis test was just awful,” Simon Cowell would tell these people, as they bawled their eyes out.

After that the show would present the top dozen contestants, and every week they’d offer their own concurring or dissenting opinions on classic Supreme Court cases. Here, I’d suggest theme episodes: One week would be abortion decisions, the next free speech, the next they could sing power ballads, etc.

Ultimately the public would vote until only one contestant remained, namely, the hottest one. If you think this is a bad way to choose our nation’s top jurists, you have clearly never taken a gander at Antonin Scalia, who frankly is less attractive than most species of beetle larvae.

I urge Congress to hurry and make this the official plan, before we lose any members of the current court. It’ll get the public interested in the judicial system, and justices might get in touch with how average Americans think. If it works, I have an idea for a spin-off: “Is Jim Bunning Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”