3 ms·

6 year staggered appointments. So 3 justices terms are up every 2 years. Means one president doesn't get to completely stack the court, but each has a fair impa

6 year staggered appointments. So 3 justices terms are up every 2 years. Means one president doesn't get to completely stack the court, but each has a fair impact on it, and we aren't stuck with judges with outdated ideologies forever (unless people vote for it).

eridius 7y ago
6 years is awfully short for this sort of thing. What we absolutely need to avoid is having justices have to care about reelection, which means we need to say justices can only ever serve one term, which means we need longer terms.
- ashelmire 7y ago
  > What we absolutely need to avoid is having justices have to care about reelection It's an appointment, so they would only have to convince the president. Or you can prevent reappointment at all.
  - eridius 7y ago
    Ok "reelection" is the wrong term, but if anything this is worse, because if judges can have multiple terms then it means they're beholden to the current president when their term ends and therefore will be heavily swayed by party politics. This is why judgeships are normally lifetime roles, though the important part of "lifetime role" is "only one term" and not "never ends".
chimeracoder 7y ago
> 6 year staggered appointments. So 3 justices terms are up every 2 years. Means one president doesn't get to completely stack the court, but each has a fair impact on it, and we aren't stuck with judges with outdated ideologies forever (unless people vote for it). That's how the Senate used to work, with state legislatures "electing" the senators. That was replaced a hundred years ago with direct election of senators.
cataphract 7y ago
The proposal more often floated around is an 18-year term limit (see https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=701121 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=701121 ), which would give each president 2 appointments. The big difficult, however, is how to make sure that a hostile senate wouldn't just block all nominations (which is the new norm). Some people like Calabresi have suggested that the president and everyone in the senate would be denied all compensation (IIRC even from private parties) until the seat is filled. I don't think that's a workable idea though.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  The simple way to stop the Senate from just blocking everything (which it does by not scheduling a vote, to avoid accountability of individual senators to voting down qualified candidates) is to reshape their confirmation power to a power to actively reject.
- kkarakk 7y ago
  would it even matter when presidents are now billionaires in their own right?
dragonwriter 7y ago
> 6 year staggered appointments. So 3 justices terms are up every 2 years. Means one president doesn't get to completely stack the court Most presidents are reelected to two terms, and so if judicial terms were offset from Presidential terms by a year, they'd have: At 0 years, 0 justices they appointed. At 1 year, 3 justices. At 3 years, 6 justices. At 5-8 years (and up until 1 year into the next term), all 9 justices. So most President get to completely stack the court, the effects just don't last as long—the judiciary becomes another weathervane political branch of government, because the two of those was too few. (And I don't even want to consider the consequences of all those short time justices looking to their post-Court career while sitting on the bench.)
- rayiner 7y ago
  Would be psyched to live in a world where Bush II got to appoint the entire Supreme Court after 9/11.
  - ashelmire 7y ago
    You'd have lived in a world where the current Supreme Court was appointed almost entirely by Obama. Also, Citizen's United wouldn't have been ruled the way it was. Would be a damn better world.
    - harryh 7y ago
      Citizen's United was decided on Jan 21, 2010. At this point the court would have still been dominated by Bush II appointees not Obama ones. Always hard to say for sure, but it probably goes the same way under this proposal.

eridius 7y ago

6 years is awfully short for this sort of thing. What we absolutely need to avoid is having justices have to care about reelection, which means we need to say justices can only ever serve one term, which means we need longer terms.

ashelmire 7y ago
> What we absolutely need to avoid is having justices have to care about reelection It's an appointment, so they would only have to convince the president. Or you can prevent reappointment at all.
- eridius 7y ago
  Ok "reelection" is the wrong term, but if anything this is worse, because if judges can have multiple terms then it means they're beholden to the current president when their term ends and therefore will be heavily swayed by party politics. This is why judgeships are normally lifetime roles, though the important part of "lifetime role" is "only one term" and not "never ends".

chimeracoder 7y ago

> 6 year staggered appointments. So 3 justices terms are up every 2 years. Means one president doesn't get to completely stack the court, but each has a fair impact on it, and we aren't stuck with judges with outdated ideologies forever (unless people vote for it). That's how the Senate used to work, with state legislatures "electing" the senators. That was replaced a hundred years ago with direct election of senators.

cataphract 7y ago

The proposal more often floated around is an 18-year term limit (see https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=701121 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=701121 ), which would give each president 2 appointments. The big difficult, however, is how to make sure that a hostile senate wouldn't just block all nominations (which is the new norm). Some people like Calabresi have suggested that the president and everyone in the senate would be denied all compensation (IIRC even from private parties) until the seat is filled. I don't think that's a workable idea though.

dragonwriter 7y ago
The simple way to stop the Senate from just blocking everything (which it does by not scheduling a vote, to avoid accountability of individual senators to voting down qualified candidates) is to reshape their confirmation power to a power to actively reject.
kkarakk 7y ago
would it even matter when presidents are now billionaires in their own right?

dragonwriter 7y ago

> 6 year staggered appointments. So 3 justices terms are up every 2 years. Means one president doesn't get to completely stack the court Most presidents are reelected to two terms, and so if judicial terms were offset from Presidential terms by a year, they'd have: At 0 years, 0 justices they appointed. At 1 year, 3 justices. At 3 years, 6 justices. At 5-8 years (and up until 1 year into the next term), all 9 justices. So most President get to completely stack the court, the effects just don't last as long—the judiciary becomes another weathervane political branch of government, because the two of those was too few. (And I don't even want to consider the consequences of all those short time justices looking to their post-Court career while sitting on the bench.)

rayiner 7y ago
Would be psyched to live in a world where Bush II got to appoint the entire Supreme Court after 9/11.
- ashelmire 7y ago
  You'd have lived in a world where the current Supreme Court was appointed almost entirely by Obama. Also, Citizen's United wouldn't have been ruled the way it was. Would be a damn better world.
  - harryh 7y ago
    Citizen's United was decided on Jan 21, 2010. At this point the court would have still been dominated by Bush II appointees not Obama ones. Always hard to say for sure, but it probably goes the same way under this proposal.