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Legislative power

Shape the federal courts

The Constitution creates only one court, the Supreme Court, and leaves everything else to Congress: every district court, every court of appeals, the number of justices, and much of what the courts may hear all rest on statute.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 9 & Article III, Section 1

Read the clause itself, verbatim and in plain language, in the in-app Constitution.

Held by

Congress

U.S. RepresentativeU.S. Senator

How it works in practice

Congress has set the Supreme CourtThe only court the Constitution itself creates. Nine Justices, life tenure, and near-total control over which cases they hear.Read the full definition (opens a new tab)'s size anywhere from five to ten seats (nine since 1869), built the three-tier system in stages (circuitOne of the thirteen regions of the federal appellate system. Saying a case is in the Ninth Circuit names both the court and the states it covers.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) courts of appeals arrived in 1891), and controls appellate jurisdictionThe power to review a lower court's decision rather than hear a case fresh. Congress sets its shape for the federal courts, including the Supreme Court's.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) through 'exceptions and regulationA binding rule written by a federal agency under authority Congress gave it. It has the force of law, but it is not a statute and can be changed without Congress.Read the full definition (opens a new tab)'. Court-expansion and jurisdictionA court's legal authority to hear a case: over the subject matter, the parties, and the territory.Read the full definition (opens a new tab)-stripping proposals are this power flexing, whatever one thinks of them, they are constitutional levers, not glitches.

The answering checks
The courtsArticle III judgeA judge appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, holding office during good behavior with salary that cannot be reduced. Removable only by impeachment.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) and salary protection (Art. III) shield sitting judges from retaliation.
The PresidentCourt legislation is ordinary legislation, subject to veto.
See it in the app
Source

Constitution Annotated, Article III

Terms to know: jurisdictionA court's legal authority to hear a case: over the subject matter, the parties, and the territory.Read the full definition (opens a new tab)

Plain-language civic education, not legal advice. The live boundaries of this power are set case by case; the sources above and the constitutional text control.