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Way too long, but if it could be retroactively in effect then maybe.
With no limits on tenure, the average Supreme Court term since 1993 has reached 28 years — over twice as long as most peer countries. I would say that knocking 10 years off this average - particularly when three of the worst judges are already over the limit would yield an immediate and dramatic improvement in court functions. I also don't know what the optimal SCOTUS tenure should be. 8 years? 12 years? 2 years? Presumably, you want extended terms to cement court precedent. But, idk, maybe you don't?
Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any actual text of this bill. Just a bunch of headlines announcing the announcement.
So it's very possible he's grandfathered sitting SCOTUS judges in, at which point the bill would be worse than performative.
10 seems to be average and keeps it off them presidential election cycle most years.
"The tenure in office of a justice of the Supreme Court may not exceed 18 years. In the case of any justice who is serving as of the ratification of this amendment, if the tenure in office of that justice is 18 years or more, that term of that justice shall be terminated. If such a justice is the Chief Justice, the position shall be filled in accordance with law."
That's the entirety of the proposed amendment.
Seems pretty straightforward. But do we really want to give Trump a chance to get 3 more justices that will rule the courts for the next 18 years?
Exactly. A phased rollout could give successive administrations opportunity to select their own. But let's not be naïve: they'd all quit now to give their seats to Trump appointees.
"In the case of any justice who is serving as of the ratification of this amendment, if the tenure in office of that justice is 18 years or more, that term of the justice having the longest tenure shall be terminated immediately. Every two years thereafter the next longest tenured justice shall be teminated until such time no justice having over 18 years tenure remains."
A better solution would be an expansion then contraction. Add 2 seats every two years for 6 years, then start removing at 18 years two years after we have 15 justices. Hopefully by that time most will have voluntary left anyway,and we will have had enough executive and congressional turnover to make this more fair and representative.
Good point about people resigning early. That would probably be a problem no matter what. If someone was at 16 years, they would probably be incentivized to retire early if they thought the next president wouldn't be from their party.
Right now, judges almost never resign, so they just happen to die whenever most of the time, which allows conservatives to replace liberal judges and vice versa (in theory). Resigning early would likely be a huge problem.
Might have to do something like say each president gets to nominate a maximum of 2 justices. Those two justices being the people with the longest tenure on the court. If someone dies, that counts as nomination. If the president has already used their 2 nominations, then the next president will appoint a replacement.
Just have the President fill the remainder of the term, not a fresh 18 years. So if a bunch of mouth breathers want to retire early that seat doesn’t change regardless.
Like how trump extorted one judge into retiring so he got Kavanaugh's seat?
8 or 10 sounds okay since they're appointed by POTUS, shorter terms might be problematic because it would make it easier to stack unless we limit that power somehow. I don't want mummies holding office forever to cement precedent, I want progress which aligns with the views of the current majority of voters.
H.J.Res. 174: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to provide for term limits for justices of the Supreme Court.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-joint-resolution/174?hl=H.J.Res.+174&s=4&r=1
https://www.congress.gov/119/bills/hjres174/BILLS-119hjres174ih.pdf
But why? Like, what's the reasoning of 10 years rather than 12 or 6 or 24? It seems like we're trying to apply a magic number to a policy problem. If the SCOTUS judges come to the same rules with different term limits, are we going to come back here and say we need to fiddle with the magic number some more?
I think one of the upshots of lifetime term limits has been younger and younger bench appointees. Roberts was 50 when he took the job.
Well, there's the damned thing. Not great that it has zero co-sponsors. But I guess people are talking about it, which is nice.
Ah, I see he's got balls enough to put the right kind of language in there. Wish he could rally some other reps behind this idea before he launched it.
In support of 18 it’s terms staggered every two years with the current 9 justices, so each president gets two. Personally I’d hope after year 1 and year 3, so as to avoid any tomfoolery of immediately taking office and installing a troublemaker.
Not quite sure how I’d handle it if we get to 13 Justices like we’ll need to.
It's crazy that we have 12 regional circuits and only nine judges to oversee them. But imagine how many people would freak out at the number 13 if we had that many judges
Putting aside age and term limits aside, I think adding more checks and balances to SCOTUS appointees would be important. The current process puts the appointment of justices into too few hands.
In a revised USA, I think the nation should be divided into regions with their own judiciaries and executive offices, but each region sends justices to represent them on the national supreme court. If the US was in four pieces, and each could contribute four justices apiece, that would be 16. Toss in the president of each region picking a justice to represent their administration, and that is 20 justices. The four presidents of the regions also pick a figurehead president to represent the nation, who in turn chooses a head justice to assist the supreme court proceedings and to be a tie breaker when the other 20 justices can't agree.
By dividing up representation like this, it would be harder for the supreme court to become corrupt and stratified.
EDIT: A thought. The justices that a region assigns, 2 of them could be picked by the region's congress, 2 by their judiciary. This might further reduce the odds of corruption.
Literally the entire Senate. How many more hands are you asking for?
This is just the EU. Which... has plenty of its own problems.
Only a simple majority of the Senate, so 51 people. How about 2/3 instead? Would 67 people be too much to ask, do you think?
You're just describing the filibuster.
Personally, I view it as an iterative improvement over the EU, and I am of the mind that the EU is much better than the US of today.
As to hands: rather than all the palms, it is more about separating them. Each region has its own judiciary, congress, and executive. These three branches place justices onto the national court. 2 judiciary, 2 congressional, and the current president appoints a justice to represent them during their administration. The next president's chosen justice replaces the previous president's pick.
This combined with the concept of regions, makes it much harder for any one voice to dominate the national court. Add in term and age limits to further prevent the consolidation of power and corruption.
I would not have said that ten years ago, when Obama was President of the US and Berlusconi was PM of Italy. I doubt anyone will be saying that in the UK, once Keir Starmer hands the gavel over to Nigel Farrage or in France when Emmanuel Macron concedes defeat to Marie LePenn.
Nothing in this plan prevents the current composition of court judges from being seated.
The court already consists of nine supreme court justices. While I'm all for court-packing, I still don't see anyone explaining why the next four or eight or fifty SCOTUS judges won't all be Federalist Society hacks of ACB caliber.
Why do I want Texas, Florida, Idaho, and Maine to have a louder voice in dictating who issues the final decision on the interpretation of legal statutes? How does regionalization help, when so many regions in the US fucking suck shit.
I like the idea of lifetime appointments but a new justice every two years. This eventually dilutes the power of any individual judge.
An interesting idea. But, again, I don't know what this does to shape current SCOTUS policy.
It is explicitly retroactive.
Here's the entire amendment:
"The tenure in office of a justice of the Supreme Court may not exceed 18 years. In the case of any justice who is serving as of the ratification of this amendment, if the tenure in office of that justice is 18 years or more, that term of that justice shall be terminated. If such a justice is the Chief Justice, the position shall be filled in accordance with law."
If I had to guess, that math might be if you were to have a new justice appointed every 2 years, which IMO is reasonable. 9 total justices, so 18 years before a given seat's rotation would come up again.
A sitting president could nominate 2 justices in a single term, 4 if they win a second. That allows the greatest amount of turnover in an 8-year period without enabling a single president to fill a majority of the court with their own picks during their term.