The ethics scandals involving Justices Alito & Thomas are symptomatic of sitting in an elite and unaccountable bubble for decades, and it’s bad our democracy. But there is something we can do about it: Supreme Court term limits. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/ethics-scandals-show-need-supreme-court-term-limits?fbclid=IwAR2-OXEgiSDBWho7eUMh8P2Clw2clTPYZIF-Tb0fQZxpxtuzpzye46GsHC8
#SCOTUS #TermLimits are a great idea who's time has come!!
Best plan I've heard of would be 18 year staggered terms (assuming a 9 member court). That way every prez would get to appoint 2 every four year cycle.
WE SHOULD DO THIS!! 👍
Well what would you do about unscheduled vacancies?
If there were two unexpected vacancies during a president's term, would that be an addition to the two that were scheduled, therefore giving that president room to appoint four of the nine?
Aaaah, so even more like senators where there are different classes of senators, there would be different classes of justices serving their time.
Sounds like a reasonable way to handle it.
@volkris @CarlG314 @BrennanCenter
I think of it like income averaging… such as laddering CDs… 6, 12, 18, 24 months so every six months you are either taking profits or dumping the bad investments.
I haven’t seen anything written about it but there would probably be positive incentives for the justices themselves to have a predetermined fixed term.
Well I think it's the kind of thing where there's no perfect solutions, just different options each with its own pluses and minuses.
Just to throw out one downside to this suggestion, one off the top of my head, any official who knows his job is ending has less incentive to do good work to keep the job.
In this case, heaven forbid there was a justice all-too-willing to misbehave in office but for the threat of impeachment to hold them between the lines, a threat that basically disappears through the course of that final term.
But then yep, it could be that this proposal is the worst one but for all the others :)
I wonder what state experiments with their courts would show empirically.
@CarlG314 @BrennanCenter
I suspect there would be fewer "deaths on the bench" because the justices could no longer "age into the job" as they do now. Otherwise… random events (deaths, resignations) would probably be handled as they come up. The nominal goal is to spread the appointments over all administrations rather than luck of the draw as it is now. It doesn't have to be perfect.
IMO off-schedule appointees would fill out the remainder of the missing justice's 18-year term. If less than a year then the court works with eight (which they sometimes do for other reasons).
It might actually be good to have a few short-timers on the court. Mix it up a bit!
Plus (different topic) by the time this is in place there should be many more #recusals because we will have forced them to accept a #CodeOfEthics!! 😉
Still way better than what we have now!
Well, it's such a huge topic, one of those where there's no perfect solution, just different imperfect options, all with their drawbacks.
I do have two responses though:
It's been missed in the reporting that SCOTUS actually DOES have ethical rules. For example, Thomas is reported to have consulted the authorities on those rules at the time, who told him how to abide by them. And when the rules changed, he pivoted to abide by the new rules as well.
So the rules do exist, despite so many reports getting that wrong.
Second, when you talk about shaking things up, keep in mind that reliability and predictability are inherently valuable to the legal system.
*Even if* a rule might be a bit off-key, it's valuable for a person to know what the rule will be. Shaking things up comes at a cost.
Really, it's a count your blessings situation. A new Court has every chance of being worse.
Two observations…
Avg life expectancy was something under 40 years (!) when the first #SCOTUS was seated. "Life Time Appointment" meant something very different back then.
My understanding is that the federal judiciary HAS a code of #ethics, but SCOTUS officially does NOT follow it. If they did, we wouldn't be where we are today.
A significant part of the story that has come out lately is Thomas pointing out that he consulted SCOTUS experts who guided him in applying their code of ethics, which in itself shows that they do have a code of ethics, despite so much misreporting saying the opposite.
As for lifetime appointment meaning something different now, I completely disagree with that.
The goal of the lifetime appointment, upon good behavior, is to insulate the Court, if imperfectly, from political influence and strategic gaming, and that goal remains no matter how long lifetimes may be.
Again, I say there is no perfect solution, just different imperfect options with different tradeoffs, but I personally don't think the lifespan argument makes much difference.
@volkris @richardrathe @BrennanCenter Yes. An unscheduled vacancy would be filled just like we do for senators - the replacement serves our the remainder of the term for the justice he/she is replacing.