Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent health problems have Liberals very, very worried.
They are beginning to panic since Ginsburg is 85-years-old and is facing health issues. They are realizing that the elderly judge could be forced to resign or even worse, die in office. If that were to happen, President Trump would then get another Supreme Court pick giving the edge to Conservatives 6-3 which has the left sweating bullets.
So, to fix the problem, liberals are pushing for a new constitutional amendment to limit the term length of Supreme Court judges.
Under the original Constitution of the Founders, Supreme Court judges serve for life or “good behavior.” Many Liberals are now calling for a single, non-renewable eighteen-year term.
Here is more from Vox:
The core problem here is the stakes of Supreme Court nominations: They’re too damn high. Candidates serve for life — which, given modern longevity and youthful nominees, can now mean 40 years of decisions — and no one knows when the next seat will open. President Jimmy Carter served four years and saw no open seats. President George H.W. Bush served four years and filled two. Barack Obama served two terms and confirmed two justices. Donald Trump isn’t even two years into his presidency and, thanks to McConnell’s assist with Merrick Garland, he’s already filled the same number of vacancies as Obama did in eight.
The result isn’t merely an undemocratic branch of government but a randomly undemocratic branch of government. And that randomness, and the stakes of seeing it play out in your side’s favor, turn Supreme Court nominations into bloodsport.
In practice, the Supreme Court decides how elections are funded, whether abortions are legal, whether millions of people will continue to have health insurance — if legislators and activist groups see its composition as a matter of life and death, that’s because it often is. This is why, in 2016, McConnell refused to consider any of President Obama’s nominees to fill the vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia: Keeping a conservative majority on the Court was, for Republicans, worth any amount of damage to the institution, and to American politics more broadly.
These same incentives create extraordinary pressure for justices to stay on the bench long after they might have otherwise retired, in the hopes that they can outlast an ideologically unfriendly administration. They also bias presidents toward nominating the youngest qualified jurist they can find, rather than the best candidate they can find.
The Supreme Court should reflect the Constitution and the country, not the quirks of longevity. Holding justices to a single, nonrenewable term would lower the stakes of any individual Supreme Court nomination as well as make the timing of fights more predictable.
An idea like this could have bipartisan support — Gov. Rick Perry proposed 18-year terms in the 2012 campaign, making an argument that I think sounds even more persuasive today:
“Doing this would move the court closer to the people by ensuring that every President would have the opportunity to replace two Justices per term, and that no court could stretch its ideology over multiple generations. Further, this reform would maintain judicial independence, but instill regularity to the nominations process, discourage Justices from choosing a retirement date based on politics, and will stop the ever-increasing tenure of Justices.”
…
Implementing term limits for the Supreme Court would be a step toward repairing and normalizing a process that raises the stakes of vacancies beyond what our politics, or the human beings who serve on the Court, can comfortably bear.
This is a horrible idea. Some of the exact things Liberals are complaining about were intentional on the part of the Founders in creating a Supreme Court with lifetime appointments.
It’s actually a good thing, for example, that the process for electing judges is “undemocratic.” You don’t want judges subject to a popularity contest, directly elected by the people; otherwise, you’ll end up with bad judges. The nomination process ensures the greatest practicable extent the selection of good officers to fill the job. The people themselves, as it turns out, probably aren’t always the best judges.
But more importantly, beyond the nomination process that involves the other two branches of government (the president nominates and the Senate confirms), the “good behavior” term ensures that our judges remain independent from the other branches once in office. That’s also part of what makes a good judge, but, more importantly, what turns out to be absolutely necessary for preserving the rule of law and impartial adjudication of that law.
A term limit of any length would destroy the main purpose of the courts, and would render the selection of good judges almost impossible.
