Eliminate lifetime appointments

[superpatriotman]

We no longer need a professional judicial class.

Enact term limits across public office

We no longer need a professional political class.

[onenote]

1. Requires a constitutional amendment

Term limits for the judiciary can’t just be “enacted”

[blueinredohio]

2. Agreed. No one should have a lifetime job.

That's how we get corruption.

[dware]

3. That would require a change to the Constitution,

you would need 2/3rds of the Congress and 3/4ths of the states to ratify any change to the Constitution, so, 13 states can nullify any change to the Constitution.

[onenote]

6. No. Adding to the court can be done by legislation

[onenote]

10. Nope.

It failed for several reasons, starting with the refusal of the Chair of the Senate Judiciary committee to move the bill, a change in the Courts thinking on New Deal legislation and the death and replacement of one of the Justices.

[onenote]

8. An amendment isn't happening.

[onenote]

14. It would only harden the rights resolve against term limits

Assume Thomas leaves the Court and is replaced by Biden. The court would still have a 5/4 conservative majority. While term limits would force Breyer off the court first, Biden would replace him with another liberal so the balance would stay at 5/4. But the next two impacted by term limits would be Roberts and Alito and there is no way Republican states would support giving Biden a shot at replacing them and thereby creating a liberal majority on the Court.

[onenote]

18. Not really.

Under your scenario, Biden gets to replace Alito and Thomas, giving the Court a 5-4 liberal majority. Term limits would give Biden an opportunity to turn that into a 6-3 majority (and to replace Breyer with a much younger Justice).

The reality is that it takes bipartisan support to amend the constitution and Republicans will never support term limits if it will give a Democratic president more opportunities to name Justices and, similarly, Democrats would never support term limits if it will give a Republican president more opportunities to name justices.

[brooklynite]

12. The problem is that "we" aren't enough

The average voter doesn't have an opinion on lifetime appointments at all, much less opposition to it.

[Codeine]

13. Bullshit. Anti-democratic bullshit.

Term limits exist for all elected offices — they’re called elections. If people wish to be represented by the same people then that is their right.

And a Constitutional Amendment ain’t happening, so the judicial branch will continue as before. Don’t like it? Win elections.

[Codeine]

17. Winning elections means winning at every level.

Democratic voters have the distressing having of not voting during midterms and not worrying about down-ballot races. If we can’t get our shit together enough to win then we can’t expect to control the courts.

Term limits are a Know-Nothing answer to a non-problem.