Senate Democrats introduce bill to implement term limits and biannual appointments to Supreme Court
Senate Democrats reignite debate over Supreme Court justice term limits
Pictured: Worst Supreme Court ever.
Worst supreme Court ever so far.
I mean, possibly not quite if we go back far enough in history, Dred Scott was a thing after all.
The Lochner Era might have been worse than the pre-civil war era.
To know that the Lochner Era was like, just imagine this court in 10-years.
The Supreme Court during the Lochner era has been described as "play[ing] a judicially activist but politically conservative role".[5] The Court sometimes invalidated state and federal legislation that inhibited business or otherwise limited the free market, including minimum wage laws, federal (but not state) child labor laws, regulations of banking, insurance and transportation industries.[5] The Lochner era ended when the Court's tendency to invalidate labor and market regulations came into direct conflict with Congress's regulatory efforts in the New Deal.
The Lochner court struck down laws that would have lessened the impact of the 1929 stock market crash, and also struck down efforts to shorten the depression.
FDR flat out said that if they didn't knock it off, he would appoint as many justices as needed to undo the damage.
This current bill is maybe not the way to do it. Just add a few more seats (13 Total, to match the number of appeals circuits), and then maybe name the Federalist Society a hate group and ineligible for federal service in any capacity.
I dunno. A previous one actually caused the civil war by declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. Then there’s separate but equal. Then there’s the fact that the Court decided that the constitution gave it the power to rule in the constitutionality of laws even though it doesn’t say that. Then there’s saying that the second amendment applies to people rather than militias.
Wouldn't you know it, the Federalist Society implicitly supports all of those supreme courts. Their president Leonard Leo is behind half of the current supreme court appointments
And that's to say nothing of Dred Scott or Korematsu.
I was with you until the last sentence. Nobody should complain about having rights. Support all rights for all Americans.
Rights don't just grow on trees you know, they are hard as fuck to get.
Then there’s saying that the second amendment applies to people rather than militias.
In order to protect a Collective Right the 2A had to protect an Individual Right. It literally couldn't function any other way. In the context of the 1A it would be as if there was a Right To Assembly (Collective Right) but no right to Free Speech (Individual Right). That interpretation isn't new either, it's present in nearly every SCOTUS case that involved the 2nd Amendment.
I agree that SCOTUS has problems but their take on the 2A is well supported by previous decisions and historical documents.
That's a pretty tall claim. Maybe the worst SCOTUS in your lifetime, but if you know anything of US history, you'd know that calling it the worst SCOTUS of all time is a pretty tall order.
Hey, let's give this Court a chance. They could still ignite a civil war if they tried harder!
So... You think court opining on Dread-Scott was better?
People seem to think they're supposed to somehow compensate for legislators doing exactly what they were elected to accomplish - to say "fuck you" to the other party, as evidenced by people saying they could never vote for anyone from that party no matter how corrupt the politicians from their own party (totally a New York and California thing at least)
How about term limits in congress too?
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.
We elect House members every 2 years and Senate every 6, whereas Supreme Court justices are lifetime appointments
This is comparing apples and plastic bottles
I feel like regulations on plastic bottles are just as useful as regulations on apples, even if the regulations are a bit different.
Just because two things are different doesn't mean they can't have something in common.
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.
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.
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.
You know we fucked up when in order to enact oversight on a branch of government we need to ask for their consent first.
Are you...talking about the proposed term limits? Because that's purely legislative, there's no need to ask permission from the justices.
Justices can just rule it unconstitutional.
It'd have to pass constitutional muster. Usually, it's hard for one branch of government to impose restrictions on another branch of government without a constitutional amendment. It'd end up in front of the Supreme Court to decide if they would accept that restriction or not.
One of the reasons increasing the size of the Supreme Court comes up as a solution is because Congress is explicitly allowed to just do that.
"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
This would be better if they also limited their own terms in the bill
I’m pretty sure that’s a state-by-state thing. I’m also pretty sure that some states already have some term limits.
You would be right on both counts.
That being said, term limits for members of Congress to solve anything is one of those things that sound good on the surface but could actually make everything even worse.
It's supposed to decrease corruption by incumbents being less entrenched, but it could be the cause of much MORE corruption by making the revolving door between corrupt business interests and corrupt politics spin faster..
Do you mean like with actual rules and PENALTIES!!!! I'm betting that it will be as unconstitutional as hell, by the predictable majority.
But with short terms, the court might be politicized!!1 /s
Let's start with this premise: the court is politicized because the two party system demands it over a long enough period of time.
And now we can work our way forward.
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?
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".
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.
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.
If you do this outside a Constitutional Amendment, what will happen is that it will just get challenged up to the Supreme Court, who will then strike it down.
Not really. The constitution only says that the SCOTUS exists and is the highest court. Everything else is up to Congress. There didn’t always used to be 9 justices for instance. Congress has even passed laws to strip the court of the right to hear any case they want. Some types of cases have to go through special courts of original jurisdiction, like bankruptcy.
Because Presidential term limits were defined by the 22nd Amendment, I guarantee the court will not accept limitations without a new amendment. Especially not this court.
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.
During good behavior. This is clearly not limited by time or age. The only way to remove them without their retirement or death is via impeachment for a violation of "good behavior." This stuff can be changed but the way to do so is via amendment.
Even if that were true, they should STILL try it. You do it to put the pressure on, to slowly move forward, put the idea in the news, on people's minds, etc. It may seem futile but we have to start somewhere.
That's how you waste political capital on ineffective, performative measures which do nothing but guarantee supreme court challenge.
If you want to waste taxpayer money, this is the way to do it.
See that's what people said during the Trump impeachments. Everyone knew it wouldn't go anywhere and it changed nothing.
Who would challenge it?
Who would challenge student debt relief? :) There's always some conservative think tank out there willing to roll back progress.
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.
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?
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!”)
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.
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
Can this be done with an act of congress or does it take a constitutional amendment?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cool, we desperately need this. Shame it'll die in the senate.
Shame it’ll die in the senate.
It's why they're introducing it now instead of when Democrats held control of the house.
There's always comments like this. But I gotta wonder. How many bills do you think can and are voted on every congressional session? Do you think it's possible to introduce and vote on every single bill they'll ever support when a particular party has the power? Or do you really think they pick and choose and make a show of waiting until it's impossible to pass? Do you really think there wasn't another bill or lots of bills that they wanted to pass before that took precedent? And what about the time needed to draft and discuss the bills pior introducing them? That certainly needs its own time.
If it didn't die in the Senate it would die in the courts as the unconstitutional tripe that it is. Complete waste of time.
Technically speaking, if it were proposed and passed as an amendment, it wouldn't be unconstitutional. But then it'd have to pass by a larger margin and almost certainly wouldnt.
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.
In every photo, Thomas looks like he needs to take a shit.
He’s just a giant turd, so that’s somewhat fitting.
For some reason this chain of comments evokes “Giant Turd” in the voice of Zefrank from yt
Id vote for this
Just grandstanding, like introducing bills for M4A and the Green New Deal
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.
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
Would be lovely to see.
Agree.
They only introduce these bills when they don't have a majority
It’s basically a threat to the billionaires.