Democrats Pushing For SCOTUS Term Limits After They Don’t Get Their Way
They are the biggest babies.
Lather, rinse, and repeat.
The Supreme Court once again went against the Democrats by striking down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
Enter The Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act, first formulated in 2021.
Yes, Democrats are throwing a hissy fit because SCOTUS struck down the student loan forgiveness plan.
Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Don Beyer (D-VA) brought forth the bill on Monday. The bill would implement an 18-year term limit instead of a lifetime appointment:
“The Supreme Court’s decision to block student debt relief will put many hardworking Americans at risk of default and will be a disaster for our economy,” Khanna said in a statement.
“Our Founding Fathers intended for lifetime appointments to ensure impartiality. The decision today demonstrates how justices have become partisan and out of step with the American public. I’m proud to reintroduce The Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act to implement term limits to rebalance the Court and stop extreme partisanship.”
Except, there is no federal law that authorizes the forgiveness plan. It would have eliminated $400 billion in loan debt.
Show me where in the Constitution or federal laws that allow anyone to cancel student loans.
Six of the three justices couldn’t find anything, too:
The text of the HEROES Act does not authorize the [Education] Secretary’s loan forgiveness program. The Secretary’s power under the Act to “modify” does not permit “basic and fundamental changes in the scheme” designed by Congress. Instead, “modify” carries “a connotation of increment or limitation,” and must be read to mean “to change moderately or in minor fashion.” That is how the word is ordinarily used and defined, and the legal definition is no different.
But rules and laws don’t apply to Democrats. It’s partisanship when the rules go against them:
“For many Americans, the Supreme Court is a distant, secretive, unelected body that can make drastic changes in their lives without any accountability,” Beyer said. “Recent partisan decisions by the Supreme Court that destroyed historic protections for reproductive rights, voting rights and more have undermined public trust in the Court – even as inappropriate financial relationships between justices and conservative donors raised new questions about its integrity”.
No, you guys are partisan. Khanna and Beyer celebrated when SCOTUS limited the state government authority in elections.
You cannot make this up. The lack of self-awareness drives me insane.
SCOTUS stood up for free and fair elections in Moore v. Harper, preventing state legislatures from curtailing that. Now Congress needs to do its part and pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) June 27, 2023
A victory for democracy. This is great news https://t.co/VscEWZAnPs
— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) June 27, 2023
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Before you pass term limits for SCOTUS you should look at your reflection in the mirror and impose term limits on yourself.
While you’re at it maybe you should pass some real ethic requirements on yourselves.
Stop reading my mind.
All they have to do is amend the constitution … good luck.
Wow, that’s quite a bit harder than ignoring it, which is what they usually do.
The Constitution does not stipulate the number of Supreme Court Justices; the number is set instead by Congress.
It appears that the appointment for life is in Article III
“The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour…”
Are the only ways out dying/becoming incapacitated, being impeached &removed, or resigning?
It is false to state that the U.S. Constitution has to be amended to have more than 9 Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. Whoever believes this has not read the U.S. Constitution,
Are you a bot, or just have inferior reading comprehension skills?
This discussion is about limiting the number of years each SCOTUS justice can serve, not about how many justices comprise the court.
Strenuously arguing the wrong point doesn’t really add any value to the conversation.
But it stipulates that they have lifetime appointments. Any term limits act would be prima fascie unconstitutional.
The Constitution does specify that they are there for life during good behavior. The Constitution specifically says there is no term limit on Supreme Court Justices
Maybe not. This plan for an 18 year tenure for SCOTUS would seek to skirt the issue of ‘lifetime’ tenure (more accurately ‘shall hold their offices during good behaviour’) by making them a SR Judge on a Circuit CT after the 18 years on SCOTUS. I have my doubts as it is really an apples to oranges situation; SCOTUS to inferior Art III position isn’t at all the same thing.
If passed it would almost certainly have to start the clock on the 18 years from date signed into law. Otherwise it upsets the balance between the branches, disrupts the replacement cycle, which in turn disrupts who does the replacing Justices many of whom hit their 18 year long ago. As an example Justice Jackson wouldn’t be on the CT b/c she replaced Breyer whose 18 years would have run from ’94-’12 giving Obama the appointment for that seat locking it up, baring a death/resignation until 2030.
It isn’t gonna pass and even if it did the next GoP Congress and POTUS would have the option to nuke the Art III inferior courts; just pass a single paragraph legislation dissolving all Courts inferior to SCOTUS at midnight effective the day POTUS signs it. The next day pass reauthorization for inferior Art III Courts and the sitting POTUS gets to appoint 100% of the Circuit and District Judges.
Justices used to be required to preside over circuit court cases, I think once a year was the last variation. But that’s a different thing than being “demoted” to a circuit court on any kind of semi-permanent basis, if that’s what you’re suggesting. If that’s the case, likely not constitutional but it would be amusing to see it tested in the very court it’s aimed at. Frankly, I’m open to court reform. The institution is just too arrogant and powerful. Just not for the reasons and the way the democrats would do it.
To be clear I am not suggesting this 18 year idea is anything but an attempted opportunistic power grab by d/prog who throwing a tantrum.
They got used to relying on the CT helping get their bat crap crazy policies enacted when they couldn’t do so legislatively. The d/prog seem to believe that SCOTUS was their toy and we took it.
Term limits should start with the congress and the senate. Clean up your own house first. Since 1973, 84 Members of Congress—69 Representatives and 15 Senators—preferred to die in office rather than resign.
Absolutely. Let the d/prog bring it to the floor then attach an amendment for 12 year max lengths of service in HoR and Senate. See if they want to pass that as well.
When the SCOTUS rachet moves left and makes new law, Dems pat themselves on the back for their successful avoidance of the democratic law-making process. On the rare occasion that the rachet moves right, Dems yell that SCOTUS is a danger to our democracy. I wish they would make up their minds on democracy!
The response can help determine whose ox is being gored.
.
“”Six of the three justices””
Must be a Democrat district.
They really are dreaming. SCOTUS could just get a hearing from a shopped-up lawsuit and find their term limits unconstitutional. Never underestimate the power of the court to keep itself completely unaccountable to the other 2 branches no matter who is in power.
I have no problem with an 18 year term limit for SC Justices. That is equivalent to three senatorial terms and 9 congressional terms. Let’s impose the same limit on congress while we are passing the constitutional amendment. Hell, let’s impose it on the administrative state as well!
Steve Sailer did a post on this several years ago. I think he calculated that under an 18 year term limit a one-term president would be able to nominate two justices, and a two-term president would get four, under the assumption that the individual justice’s terms are staggered equally.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy RBG (27 years on the bench) died on the bench. Err…. wait, let me rephrase that. I’m happy that she refused the advice of the entire democrat party and their media henchmen to retire so that BHO could appoint her replacement, allowing Trump to nominate Gorsuch, who has turned into a rock-solid conservative Justice.
How old is the average nominee to the supreme court? This AA hire Ketanji Brown Jackson is now 52, so she was confirmed at age 51. Under the term limit proposal, she would be forced off the bench at age 69. This seems reasonable. Go home and tend to your grandchildren. This advice goes for conservative Justices, too.
It is democrats that want to nominate ever-younger Justices, Conservatives tend to nominate older Justices, that would likely want to retire naturally right around the end of an 18-year term limit.
It seems to me that the liberals haven’t thought this completely through.
Erronius
I don’t care how old he is, or gets to be, I want Thomas on the court until his final breath. And I don’t want him taking any hunting trips to W. Texas or anywhere else.
Seems to me this is just about de-legitimizing the Court.
Even they must understand that expanding the court and filling the newly created seats would only be a short term fix. What would they do if conservatives came to fill, say, 10 of 15 seats – expand it again?
D voters are stupid, their leadership is evil.
The Constitution does not specifically set the appointments of Justices for life; it is just an interpretation of Article III. Guess whose job it is to officially interpret the Constitution. I predict the Justices will self limit their terms right after Congress sets their own term limits.
I have always taken a bigger picture approach, why limit the terms to just the supreme court and not the entire federal system. I can’t see many situations where anyone younger than 35 would likely get picked to be a federal judge so that becomes my base line point. I would argue that they get 30-35 years tops as a federal judge at any level, years combined. That would limit the number of judges over the age of 70-75 serving and would create the turnover of the people wearing the robes..
This could create situations where lessor people could be nominated for higher level positions that may not be as qualified while bypassing higher qualified judges but we have a check in place for that, The senate has to confirm these appointments, the appointment process has to be more than a partisan rubber stamp moving forward.