4 ms·

A few things come to mind... - Impeaching federal judges isn't unheard of, though with today's hyper-partisan Congress, unlikely to happen. - While federal jud

A few things come to mind... - Impeaching federal judges isn't unheard of, though with today's hyper-partisan Congress, unlikely to happen. - While federal judges have life appointments, nothing in the Constitution prevents a "term limit" on a particular judge/court pairing. IE, we could move Supremes to a lower federal court after 15 years without amending the Constitution. - We could demand POTUS and Congress stop appointing assholes and crooks to the bench. But, that's about as likely as the first bullet.

marcusverus 4y ago
> While federal judges have life appointments, nothing in the Constitution prevents a "term limit" on a particular judge/court pairing. Are you sure? The constitution says: > The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour… That seems rather unambiguous to me.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  Sure? No. But the idea isn't completely ridiculous. We already allow Supremes to "retire" as senior judges (where they sit on lower benches - O'Connor did this, IIRC). The proposal to enforce this after some term of service is just an extension of the idea. It basically interprets "their Offices" to mean "office of federal jurist" as opposed to the specific role to which the judge was appointed.
  - gameman144 4y ago
    I'm not sure this would hold up to scrutiny, as the office of Supreme Court Justice and federal judge are different offices. The extreme version of this is that we'd obviously not get away with interpreting their office to be "civil servant"and shuffling them off to the DMV.
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      Different offices, but the process for a Supreme to retire and move to "normal federal judge" already exists - no re-confirmation or other antics required. Of course, SCOTUS would end up being the ultimate arbiter here, so quite likely a non-starter for that reason alone.

marcusverus 4y ago

> While federal judges have life appointments, nothing in the Constitution prevents a "term limit" on a particular judge/court pairing. Are you sure? The constitution says: > The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour… That seems rather unambiguous to me.

alistairSH 4y ago
Sure? No. But the idea isn't completely ridiculous. We already allow Supremes to "retire" as senior judges (where they sit on lower benches - O'Connor did this, IIRC). The proposal to enforce this after some term of service is just an extension of the idea. It basically interprets "their Offices" to mean "office of federal jurist" as opposed to the specific role to which the judge was appointed.
- gameman144 4y ago
  I'm not sure this would hold up to scrutiny, as the office of Supreme Court Justice and federal judge are different offices. The extreme version of this is that we'd obviously not get away with interpreting their office to be "civil servant"and shuffling them off to the DMV.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    Different offices, but the process for a Supreme to retire and move to "normal federal judge" already exists - no re-confirmation or other antics required. Of course, SCOTUS would end up being the ultimate arbiter here, so quite likely a non-starter for that reason alone.