Chief Justice selected by the SCOTUS members

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

In one of his post-retirement interviews, John Paul Stevens has stated that there is no real legal obstacle that could prevent the Justices from choosing the Chief Justice among themselves, if they wished to (either on rotation basis, as in lower federal courts, or electing one for a fixed term), and that President specifically nominating the Chief Justice is pretty much just an established tradition.

Thoughts?

[politicallefty]

The Chief Justice is only mentioned once in the actual text of the Constitution:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

With the Constitution appearing to be silent on the issue, it really just seems to be a constitutional convention in the political sense (much like how the Speaker of the House has always been a Member of the House, although that not actually being a requirement). Unless Congress passed a law saying otherwise, I see no issue with Justice Stevens' proposition.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

SCOTUS: We can name the chief Justice!
President: No you can't.

SCOTUS rules in President vs. SCOTUS: Yes we can!

[Orser67]

That's interesting, I've never heard that before. I'd argue that such a precedent takes the force of law if uncontested over 200 years.

I actually thought this thread was going to be: if Supreme Court Justices could elect their own Chief, who would they choose? My guess is that Kennedy would win via the backing of the four liberals.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

The Chief Justice is only mentioned once in the actual text of the Constitution:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

If I'm not mistaken, the Constitition doesn't say anything about the Supreme Court beside, that there should be "one Supreme Court", and the SCOTUS had been organized by the Judiciary Act of 1789.

[politicallefty]

If I'm not mistaken, the Constitition doesn't say anything about the Supreme Court beside, that there should be "one Supreme Court", and the SCOTUS had been organized by the Judiciary Act of 1789.

That's correct, although the current number of nine Justices has been set since the Judiciary Act of 1869. Congress does retain considerably power over the judiciary, including the Supreme Court. The only real limits to Congressional power over the Supreme Court is when it comes to original jurisdiction. There is a theoretical power of "jurisdiction stripping" by which Congress could potentially remove appellate jurisdiction from the Supreme Court on a particular issue at the same time as removing all jurisdiction from lower courts. Those actions together could conceivably remove any particular issue from judicial review.

[badgate]

SCOTUS: We can name the chief Justice!
President: No you can't.

SCOTUS rules in President vs. SCOTUS: Yes we can!

Well, if the legislature disagreed strongly, they would overrule SCOTUS

[krazen1211]

The Chief Justice of the United States (not of the Supreme Court!) is paid a higher salary than the others. It would be interesting to see how such a proposal would work with the Compensation Clause.

As Chief Justice, John Roberts knows that the Congress cannot abolish his office like it can abolish all others. Thus he is protected.