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> While federal judges have life appointments, nothing in the Constitution prevents a "term limit" on a particular judge/court pairing. Are you sure? The const
by marcusverus 3y 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 3y agoSure? 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 3y agoI'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 3y agoDifferent 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.