The Dummy's Guide to an Understaffed Supreme Court

"Republicans Have Crippled the Supreme Court" blares the Daily Beast headline, with the sub-header reading: "Missing deadlines, making mistakes, and leaving key questions unanswered – America's highest court is under severe strain because the GOP refuses to even grant a hearing to nominee Merrick Garland."

I won't bore you with the details of this tedious editorial, because the headline says it all, even if it misses a key point: Even if the Republicans allowed confirmation hearings on Garland, the Supreme Court would still be understaffed while that was happening.

By the way, consider the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, which took over 4 months, from July 1, 1991 to October 23, 1991 (when Thomas was sworn in). So even if they started the hearings now, and assuming they are contentious, we would be at the end of September before Garland could be sworn in.

That is just over a month from election day. So what the Republicans are doing is increasing the Supreme Court's workload for about a month. Or 3-4 months depending on who wins on election day.

Fortunately, I have a simple two-step solution to the Supreme Court's problem:

1. "Weekend at Scalia's" or "Dave Goes to the Supreme Court". This is one of those ideas I know John Roberts will kick himself for not trying. Get Kevin Spacey and dress him up as Antonin Scalia. The resemblance is uncanny:

Ok, maybe "uncanny" is an overstatement, but it's close enough. Give Spacey a few tapes of Scalia talking in public, and I'm sure Spacey can get close enough to fool most people. (NOTE: If this idea will delay the next season of House of Cards, then forget I even said it.) 

2. Keep it simple, stupid! Better known by it's acronym, KISS, this works even better for Supreme Court decisions. 

So you have only 8 justices writing all the decisions of 9 justices? That means you will need to cut down the amount of time it takes to write decisions. No problemo! 

Say you have a case where you're reviewing a death sentence, and the court decided not to overturn the death sentence? Just remember 3 simple words: "Let him fry!" Even better, this is a two-fer! If it is a woman instead of a man...You guessed it: "Let HER fry!" 

Let's say you have some boring property dispute: Pull a Johnnie Cochran, and say something like "If it's Eminent Domain, it better rain on the plain!" What does that mean? Who cares? You lawyers have already interpreted all meaning out of words anyway. With a decision like that, you will drive law students nuts for the rest of time! Not to mention, the Media will just LOVE you for that one! Heck, it might knock Donald Trump off the front page for a day. 

And really, isn't this much more fun then writing some 20-page decision? 

Seriously, if the SCOTUS gets good enough at this, they could deliver all of their decisions via Twitter!

Follow these two tips, and the Supreme Court will be so efficient, we may be able to apply these lessons to Congress!