Proposal Calls for Randomized Circuit Riding and Mobile Supreme Court Chambers

In a recent column, the writer advocates for a revival of circuit riding, but with a modern twist: justices would be randomly drawn to serve in different federal circuits each term, preventing any single justice from staying in the same region year after year. He further suggests that the chief justice assign each circuit justice to oversee one en banc oral argument in their assigned circuit, scheduled when the Supreme Court has no arguments.

The proposal also calls for justices to keep their primary chambers outside Washington, D.C., traveling to the capital only during session weeks, with Congress funding the necessary travel. Citing Justice John Paul Stevens' practice of spending part of each month in Florida, the author notes that federal law requires circuit judges to reside in their circuits, but imposes no such residency rule on Supreme Court justices.

He recommends that law clerks travel with the justices or divide their duties between local courthouses and the Supreme Court. By moving the Court’s personnel out of a “marble palace,” the suggestion aims to ground the judiciary in the everyday realities of the nation’s courts.