Ghosts of 2000 haunting Supreme Court?

[flashl]

Interest grows in limiting life tenure in Supreme Court

As Labor Day weekend got under way, Senator John Warner, Republican of Virginia, revealed his plan to end his political career, after five terms in the Senate, with a quotation from Thomas Jefferson.

"There is a fullness of time when men should go," Warner, 80, said in a graceful farewell that recalled the very different departure from the Washington stage of another powerful 80-year-old man two years earlier.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist died over Labor Day weekend in 2005, 10 months after receiving a diagnosis of an invariably fatal form of thyroid cancer. During most of that time, he had been widely expected to announce a decision to retire, but he kept even most colleagues in the dark about his condition and plans until declaring six weeks before his death that he intended to stay on.

Whether he displayed brave optimism or "a degree of egoistic narcissism," as Professor Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas Law School asserted in a recent book, is open to debate. With the protection of life tenure, the decision to play through was, in any event, completely the chief justice's own.

But it is beyond debate that interest in re-examining the wisdom of the Constitution's grant of life tenure to Supreme Court justices, a lively topic at the time of Rehnquist's illness and death, has continued to grow.

The interest, admittedly, remains largely limited to the corridors of law schools and university political science departments. No member of Congress or candidate for office has taken up the call. But the range of scholars across the ideological spectrum who are pushing or endorsing various proposals for restricting justices' tenure is impressive, numbering in the dozens of leading conservatives and liberals.

One reason for the growing consensus is that the practical meaning of life tenure has changed dramatically in recent years. Between 1789 and 1970, according to statistics in an article by Professors Steven Calabresi and James Lindgren of Northwestern University Law School, Supreme Court justices served an average of just under 15 years, with vacancies on the court occurring about once every two years.

Since 1970, justices have served nearly twice as long, more than 26 years, with the average interval between vacancies stretching to more than three years. (Life tenure today, of course, has a dimension that would surprise the Constitution's framers; since 1900, the average life expectancy, now 77 years, has increased by 30 years.)

The various proposals differ in big and small ways, although staggered 18-year terms of active service is clearly the most popular choice among those advocating change. Once fully phased in, 18-year terms would permit presidents to make a Supreme Court appointment every two years. The proposal, made by the two Northwestern professors in an article published last year in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, would require a constitutional amendment, they believe.

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There are many articles that visits the decline in public perception of the Supreme Court after 2000. Maybe, terms will lessen the strife over who gets to select a Supreme Court justice.

[bluestateguy]

1. I like the idea of a fixed term of say 12 years

With no possibility of reappointment.

[Warpy]

2. I would extend it to a more generous 20 years

in an attempt to dissuade the idea of a debt to either party.

In any case, limiting it to 20 years would prevent conservatives from pushing relatively young men onto the court in an attempt to poison it for generations, and they'd say exactly the same thing about us.

20 years on the bench is sufficient and there should be no reappointment possible, although a retired jurist could serve in other capacities.

[TomInTib]

3. I like 18 because it is not divisible by four.

That way it staggers National elections.

I think that is what I am trying to convey, here.

Damn, I wish I knew more words. In my next life, I am going to school.

[aquart]

4. No, no. You have it exactly right.