Did Today’s Hearing Make You Angry? Count to 11 and Other Remedies

Suppose that Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed. This would make Democrats (and others) angry.

For relief, they might count to 11. The number of Supreme Court justices is set by a regular statute, called the Judicial Circuits Act. 
To show one example, in 1866 Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act to shrink the number of justices from 10 to 7 to prevent President Andrew Johnson from appointing anyone new to the court. After he left office, they raised the number of justices to nine, where it has stood ever since.

Why 11? We’re at 9. By Democratic reasoning, add a seat for the Merrick Garland steal by the GOP Senate, and add one more because Judge Kavanaugh is deemed unfit for the office. No, that doesn’t remove him—but the eleventh justice could neutralize the new justice’s vote.

But that’s just the beginning.

Jurisdiction Stripping: The Constitution gives Congress power to create courts. This includes the power to strip courts of jurisdiction. A Democratic Congress could, for example, strip federal courts of jurisdiction to hear religious freedom cases (to prevent a court from interpreting religious freedom to mean some sort of right to outlaw transgender bathrooms).  

Second, Congress has the express power to define the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. All the cases that we read about in the news come up from lower courts and travel this path. 
So, for example, Democrats who fear that the Supreme Court will overturn Obamacare, with Kavanaugh on the Court, could strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to hear Obamacare cases. 
They can even transfer jurisdiction to state courts.

Add More Judges: There are 179 judges on the courts of appeals, 673 for the district courts. That’s to hear cases for 325 million people and many millions of corporations, governments, organizations and so on.

This is not news to senators on the Judiciary Committee. They know all about these options. They know that for every action, there is almost always a reaction. That's why they are loathe to make changes. 
But if Democratic and independent voters are angry enough, they might insist on these changes. A Democratic Congress, if elected, might change the judicial system as others have in the past.