President also says presidential immunity for crimes should be removed and ethics rules for justices should be stricter
Joe Biden has called for a series of reforms to the US Supreme Court, including the introduction of term limits for justices and a constitutional amendment to remove immunity for crimes committed by a president while in office.
In an op-ed published on Monday morning, the president said justices should be limited to a maximum of 18 years’ service on the court rather than the current lifetime appointment, and also said ethics rules should be strengthened to regulate justices’ behavior.
The call for reform comes after the supreme court ruled in early July that former presidents have some degree of immunity from prosecution, a decision that served as a major victory for Donald Trump amid his legal travails.
“This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States,” Biden wrote.
I want to first point out term limits are necessary and I think we need more term limits!
However 18yrs does seem just a bit too short, maybe closer to 24 or 30yr so it can span an entire “normal” career length. Keep in mind the idea of these lifetime appointments is so you dont spend years of college and your youth learning boring law stuff only to be able to keep a job for a few years. Imagine going to college, training in law for years, only to know after 18yrs you will have to go back to regular attorney work
Having guaranteed career tenures is solely there to incentivize younger people to become a justice
The supreme court is a position you normally get nominated to after years of service in the Judicial Service, they should already have 10-15 years as a judge or law professor. That should get them to retirement age.
Did Thomas even serve as a judge before he was the token nomination?
For 19 months, he also had chaired the EEOC for 9 years before that, after working in the Department of Education for 1 year.
He’s quite possibly had the fastest tracked career I’ve ever looked into. Every fast tracked career advancement he’s had has been at the hands of republicans.
There is no saying they couldn’t go down to district court level and continue to serve. It would also be possible to make a solid living getting paid to do speeches at various schools and institutions.
They could also be able to step in to hear individual cases if a justice has to recuse due to a conflict, or if there is a vacancy due to some other reason.
Exactly, nobody is going from SCOTUS back to entry-level judicial work.
The appointment should be the culimination of a reputable legal career, not handed out to foundation-approved ideologues to sit on for 30 years at a time; getting too comfortable and losing touch with societal norms.
And to clarify our justices know this and have taken advantage of the system. So change IS needed to modernize the judicial branch
Education is easier and more accessible now than ever before. And you dont really need to pass bar or have law degree to be a justice
Having life-tenure is not to incentivize people to do it. It’s to make them resistant to outside influence. If you’re going to be out of a job in x years, then it behoves you to make some friends. If your job is guaranteed for life, you need no friends.
It’s no different from tenured professorships. The job guarantee gives them the freedom to conduct research that will piss off even very powerful people without retaliation.
And the model I saw proposed would grant them senior status and thus maintain pay as if they were actively sitting.
Paying them to do nothing post term is a very very cheap solution to protect democracy.
The problem is (even currently) they want more money than is being paid directly by the federal govt.
You uh, do know you don’t just graduate and become a Supreme Court justice, right?
You also know most graduates change jobs in 2 years because they are basically forced to if they want to be paid.
47-55 seems to be pretty normal age to be appointed to Supreme Court. 18 years there puts you at retirement age. The youngest ever (32) would end at 50. For someone who gets there so young retiring early or doing whatever the fuck you want after sounds fine. Plus apparently that asshole is who we have to thank for the shaping the whole protect the rich and their property shit. Him only having 18 years woulda probably saved us a lot of bullshit.
You don’t just graduate college and apply for a job on the supreme court. You have to first make a name for yourself as an experienced judge and then get appointed by a President. So we don’t need an incentive for younger people to become a justice, since they aren’t out there applying to get picked.
Additionally, the average tenure right now is only 16 years. So if you think 18 years is too short, then you might want to bring that up with the people who keep quitting early.
What makes you think they’d go back to regular attorney work? They can still be judges, just not on the Supreme Court. And if you’re worried that serving on the Supreme Court for 18 years isn’t enough of a reward in itself, we could also continue to pay them their Supreme Court salary for life.
So they would have it just like everybody else? What’s wrong with that?
It’s 18 years because we have 9 justices, and if we want to make terms expire on a regular basis we need to tie it to the size of the Court.
But guess what? If you pack the court to 13, then the math makes the term 26 years. Much more reasonable, right? I prefer a shorter term , so after the court is packed I would advocate for 13 year terms, renewable once. But I would accept 26 year terms, too.
As others have clarified the 18 year is just about (or is) appropriate. I do think we will see an influx of younger court justices (hopefully!) and having an appealing career tenure would ideally incentivize younger folks persuing that position
Supreme court justice is not an entry level position.
I don’t see why someone couldn’t be appointed to a second (or even third) term on the Supreme court. The point is to make the court less succeptible to fluctuation by packing, not increase them.
And why wouldn’t they go back to regular attorney work? They could take a post on a Circut court or a state Supreme/Superior court. It’s not as if their entire career will be expunged after their term ends so they have to start as if they’d just graduated Law school.