Do it when there’s a chance of it passing, otherwise it’s clear you’re just looking for votes in the next election for reasons you’ll never follow through with.
Not with this attitude. Did you consider writing your representative that you support this motion?
This puts the vote on record so that people have some idea who they’re electing. Because it likely won’t pass, you won’t learn who really supports the idea, but you’ll definitely find out who opposes it. That’s very valuable information, and can only truly be learned by a vote.
Would the Supreme Court be able to strike such a law down if they themselves challenged it? They obviously couldn’t be impartial regarding a case like this, so who would rule on something like this?
No, they would not.
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
The citizens of the US voting on it would be nice
You mean a referendum? The United States disallow it because “the country is a republic”.
You can even change the constitution by a referendum (never happend before, but you could).
To slightly correct myself: The congress would need to initialize it and it was used before: For the 21 amendment (which ended the prohibition).
Part of the original reasoning of the supreme court being appointed and not elected was for it to be above politics and allow for skilled specialists to be appointed, and honestly I’m inclined to agree with that thinking.
I do believe term limits are a very good idea for all offices though. Say, 12 years for elected positions (2-3 terms) and 8-10 for appointed to allow for individuals to really get good at what they do, but keep it short enough to get new blood in there and provide clear avenues for retirement, or moving into new offices as desired by the individual.
They can only strike it down as unconstitutional or something, they can’t just say they don’t like it. I’m not sure what grounds they could even try to strike it down on. Congress has changed the rules about stuff like this and the Supreme Court before.
better idea; abolish the supreme court
Because the court is defined in the Constitution, you can’t do that without either an Amendment or a new Convention, and I don’t really trust ANYONE in Congress currently to be able to come up with a new Constitution.
“The Democrats have gone too far! If we introduced term limits for the Supreme Court then Clarence Thomas might have to pay for his own vacations one day!” - Fox News
How about term limits in congress too?
And all their salaries should be decided by the people.
Ironically, one of the few explicit stipulations in the constitution about the supreme court says their salary cannot be reduced during their time in office.
I’m all for that too, but at least they can be voted out of office. Supreme Court Justices are appointed (which I’m ok with because I don’t want them campaigning) for life. Once they’re there, they never have to leave.
Do the justices get protection like the president? Seems like they should have better protection since they are lifers while the president is only max 8 years.
Like all federal court officials, they are protected by US Marshals
they are protected by US Marshals
I’m assuming after this?
Federal judges sometimes don’t want protection around them and it’s not like the Secret Service and the President. While the Secret Service can tell the President what must happen, the Marshals can’t mandate protection details. But, when things like that happen, they certainly do.
I only just learned about this when I started a new gubment job. Wild stuff.
Now, as to what really needs to happen here, Thomas, at the very least, should face corruption and bribery charges. Maybe conspiracy to commit, too.
The idea was to ensure that the court never became political. This obviously didn’t work out, but the framers had good intentions.
If they wanted that it shouldn’t have been appointed by a political party
There were no political parties and they literally believed that none would ever form. They created the US government based on the idea that parties would never exist. Naive, obviously.
The US Marshalls provide their protection.
while the president is only max 8 years.
10, technically, but it doesn’t change your point. Just felt like doing an ackshully.
#sorrynotsorry
10? i thought as long as they didnt get the majority of the term they could keep going (so thereoretically infinite)
Per the 22nd Amendment, someone who has held the office for more than two years of someone else’s elected term is limited to a single elected term of their own. So if you’ve done two or fewer, you are still eligible to be elected twice. Those two initial years plus your two elected terms would be ten years.
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
okay so just serve 1.99 of the terms of multiple other people and you have infinite terms
Technically, 9 and 364/365 years, give or take a day for leap year(s).
Also there’s the whole non-consecutive term thing.
Fix election rules, campaign finances and gerrymandering and congress will get sorted out.
It’s almost too easy.
Couldn’t the same be said for the supreme court?
No. Supreme Court Justices are not elected.
But the article says some of those reasons are why this law is needed.
Weirdly enough, that was actually one of the things Trump campaigned on. Just about the only thing I’ve ever agreed with him on, and I don’t like the feeling lol.
He campaigned on a lot of things he never had any intention of following up on. I wouldn’t take that as a sign that he actually agreed with the sentiment.
Sounds great in principle but the reality is that the problem is lobbying and money in politics, not politicians who stay in office too long. Term limits tend to give lobbyists more power because they can “guide” the new politicians more easily if a given percentage of them are always new. The problem is the money.
I got mixed feelings on this one. The whole idea of lifetime appointments was to make justices incorruptible, not beholden to anyone, and I like that, and it’s mostly worked. Once they’re in, their main concern is their legacy, it’s a big deal for these judges. (And we know, someone’s just fucking itching to tell us how corrupt Thomas is. We know.)
The better solution is probably adding more justices. That dilutes the power of the President to appoint a majority and dilutes the power of individual justices. Tie it to something other than the whim of Congress. One for each circuit court?
Oh, and how about some ethics rules? Didn’t Amy Coney Barrett just come out in favor?
Once they’re in, their main concern is their legacy
Apparently the legacy some of them are gunning for is ‘we owned the libs and put women back in their place’ tho
The whole idea of lifetime appointments was to make justices incorruptible, not beholden to anyone, and I like that, and it’s mostly worked.
Just keep paying them for life while barring future employment. Plus, whatever the intention, this clearly hasn’t made them incorruptible, so sticking to it for a purpose it doesn’t succeed at is pointless.
Oh, and how about some ethics rules? Didn’t Amy Coney Barrett just come out in favor?
According to another poster in a different thread a few days ago, the ethics guidelines are basically already in place and just aren’t enforced. That person suggested that we need more enforcement or penalties rather than more ethics rules.
I like your idea of adding more justices because of what you said about diluting the president’s power to appoint a majority. It’s an interesting point, although we shouldn’t be in the situation we are in now (“Wait, wait, you can’t rush the process…oh, now that we have the majority we need to finish this quickly!”)
if they really wanted this they would have done it when they had the house as well as the senate
Surprising no-one, they show a complete lack of interest in actually addressing term lengths and only put forth a measure addressing what they perceive to be a Republican advantage in the Supreme Court - a move as blatantly partisan as it is hypocritical.
But, this article goes on to admit as much -
“An organized scheme by right-wing special interests to capture and control the Supreme Court, aided by gobs of billionaire dark money flowing through the confirmation process and judicial lobbying, has resulted in an unaccountable Court out of step with the American people," Whitehouse said in a press release.
It won’t happen but wonderful to see it
They only introduce these bills when they don’t have a majority
It’s basically a threat to the billionaires.
It’s bread and circuses. Now they can tell their supporters that they tried but “those darn Republicans kept it from happening! Vote harder next time and we’ll make it happen!”
When the Democrats next have a majority across the board, they’ll have some convenient reason they can’t reintroduce the bill. They’ve followed this pattern for decades. Democrats are the ‘good cop’, Republicans are the ‘bad cop’, but they’re all ‘cops’. They’re ultimately on the same team and serve the same interests - those of the rich.
Honestly I’d rather see good legislation introduced and voted down than never introduced at all. It gives hope and helps show what politicians might actually want compared to what they think they can actually pass.
Agree.
Would be lovely to see.
Good luck with that. Republicans like it as it currently is and won’t allow anything to change that.
As soon as there is a Democrats majority though, they’ll be spewing bile and demand that some bill gets pushed through that allow term limits…
I have three words for you: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
To refresh your memory, Obama asked her to retire so that he could appoint a young liberal justice who could sit the court for the next 30 years. Unfortunately, that geriatric bag of bones clung to power until her death. Guess who’s term she died under, and who got to appoint her replacement? Oh yeah, the big Don. So now because of that we have a conservative court for the foreseeable future.
This is a smoke and mirrors political move.
You think Democrats would feel any different if they held a majority?
Look at your beloved RBG. She sure didn’t want to give up her appointment…
My beloved? What are you talking about
I’m talking about how it’s always those who are at a disadvantage that cry foul the loudest. In this case Democrats want term limits because they’re currently in the SCOTUS minority and are looking for ways to shift things to their favor. Yet when they’re in the majority, suggesting something like this would be seen as a miscarriage of tradition or some other such nonsense. For once I’d love to see Democrats take an ethical stand when it doesn’t advantage them. Push for term limits when you have the majority.
Why would they? A move like this directly benefits democrats. I promise democrats would not be pushing for this if they had the majority. This is a political strategy, not a quest for just governance.
Actually it benefits everyone. There are a ton of reasons why this should be a bipartisan issue, but expecting people to think long-term is, of course, a fool’s errand. I also think that most people, including most politicians, haven’t really educated themselves on the subject and haven’t really thought it through in terms of what it would actually do.
Quiet now with your rational long term thinking.
Too true. Since the Republicans can’t organize a speaker of the house at the moment, I imagine we’ll see a lot of pie-in-the-sky style legislation come through Senate Democrats in the next few days. It will look great to have a bunch of action on the books to please their most extreme liberal elements for the next election cycle, but with the deadlock in the house, there’s little change any of it would become effective law.
Can this be done with an act of congress or does it take a constitutional amendment?
That’s a great question. I think the short answer is that while it may technically be possible through legislation there will most certainly be immediate and then ongoing constitutional challenges.
The best way to implement this would absolutely be through a constitutional ammendment so as to set an incredibly high bar in order to undo these changes. However, accomplishing that seems unlikely given the gridlock that defines congress in the modern era.
Yeah, the most realistic (but still extremely unrealistic) way of achieving it would be a constitutional convention.
Besides it beingunrealisticto even make it happen, that would be a horrible idea though, since there being little to no framework about exactly how it would work, which means that unscrupulous politicians (*cough& Republicans cough) could potentially add or remove several other amendments.
All that to say that this is probably the most effective method currently available. As a bonus, the SCOTUS overruling it would probably cause such an uproar that Congress would attempt to introduce a new way that CAN’T be blocked but doesn’t require changing the constitution.
My question is, who brings suit? You can’t bring suit if you’re not an injured party. The justices can’t bring suit without recusing themselves. This is quite the conundrum.
It would take a constitutional amendment, something that isn’t going to happen.
Why would it take a constitutional amendment when the Constitution doesn’t define the parameters for the Supreme Court?
The constitution says they serve “in good behavior”, so that could be seen as a restriction on setting term limits. The only way to remove one is impeachment.
There’s nothing that says it can’t be done. But I’m sure SCOTUS will have something to say should a case make it to them.
Constitutional amendment would be the best way. Not sure if it would be easier via Congress or State Legislatures given the implosion on Capitol Hill.
I can completely imagine the SCOTUS, especially the current SCOTUS, taking any law passed by the legislature and saying “Yeah that’s unconstitutional” with the power to destroy all laws they unilaterally granted themselves.
So much for “checks and balances” on the actual Supreme Court.
Pretty sure that the only check on SCOTUS has always been “just trust them, bro”.
Frankly it reflects very poorly on the public debate that there hasn’t been any major debates about actually doing something about that for almost 250 years, grumbling about specific decisions not really counting…
No, the Constitution says, “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.” in Article 3 and in Article 1 “The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
It could be said that Congress is mandated to pass a law defining Good Behavior, so that the judicial branch can execute its powers as defined in the constitution.
They can be impeached by the legislature.
Yeah, but we already know how that would work out…
There has been debate on this actually. I can’t find it because all search results are returning articles about current trust, but there was a period in history of very low trust in the court. This almost lead to some major changes, but they managed to rehabilitate their image by not being total villains. I want to say this was surrounding civil rights stuff, but I can’t exactly recall.
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Id vote for this
Political theater from the Dems, though I’ll admit it would be fun when scotus sues to stop the law then is the plaintiff on a case before itself where it gets to rule as to whether the exceptions clause is in that part of the constitution that is absolutely the law of the land or in that part of the constitution that is inconvenient and to be ignored
The conversation has to start. US health care isn’t there, but it has advanced in my lifetime because the conversation started with bills like this being introduced against odds. Acknowledge that.
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
Congress has the power to do whatever to the Supreme Court. It’s explicit, unlike the power to declare something unconstitutional. Congress is the check on SCOTUS.
Then isn’t the supreme court essentially just a part of the executive (or legislature, whichever branch is doing the appointing)?
It already is, just with a 40 year lag
Well not really, seeing as the appointees are spread out across decades
Another thing to gridlock congress, that would be sooooo effective.
