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?
@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.
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.
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
@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.