Democrats push for term limits on Supreme Court justices

Democrats, many of whom have not been stable since Donald Trump won the Presidency in 2016, have lost their last semblance of sanity when Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away and Donald Trump was left with a third Supreme Court pick.

Many of them are still upset that Barack Obama’s pick to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, was never brought to the floor for a hearing and to be honest if the situation were reversed I would still be complaining about it myself. The situation here is slightly different only in the fact that Barack Obama was not running for reelection and Donald Trump could win another term but that is a distinction without a difference according to the Democrats. These Democrats know there is really nothing they can do to stop it and they have already promised to stack the Supreme Court if they win the Presidency.

They also have another plan which includes limiting a President to two Supreme Court judicial nominees per term, and will also introduce term limits to the Supreme Court.

Many legislators who have always been against term limits are now in favor of them, at least in this one instance. The irony is not lost. Here is more on the bill:

Democrats in of [sic] the House of Representatives will introduce a bill next week to limit the tenure of U.S. Supreme Court justices to 18 years from current lifetime appointments, in a bid to reduce partisan warring over vacancies and preserve the court’s legitimacy.

The new bill, seen by Reuters, would allow every president to nominate two justices per four-year term and comes amid heightened political tensions as Republican President Donald Trump prepares to announce his third pick for the Supreme Court after the death on Sept. 18 of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with just 40 days to go until the Nov. 3 election.

It would save the country a lot of agony and help lower the temperature over fights for the court that go to the fault lines of cultural issues and is one of the primary things tearing at our social fabric,” said California U.S. Representative Ro Khanna, who plans to introduce the legislation on Tuesday, along with Representatives Joe Kennedy III of Massachusetts and Don Beyer of Virginia.

The bill – the Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act – is the first to try to set Supreme Court term limits by statute, according to Gabe Roth, the executive director of Fix the Court, a judicial transparency group whose campaign for high court term limits has been gaining attention.

This may seem like, and indeed it is, sour grapes but while I have a problem with limiting the President to filling only a certain number of vacancies I honestly do not have a problem with there being term limits on judges, both on the Supreme Court and in the lower courts, because we have seen many instances over the years where a justice is not capable of performing his or her duties and yet remains on the court. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a perfect example herself.

The problem I have here is a Constitutional one. Article II Section 2 of the Constitution gives the right to the President to fill ALL vacancies, to say the President can only fill SOME vacancies because he has already filled enough is just silly. And the Constitution grants lifetime judicial appointments in Article III Section 1. Both of the proposals in this bill would require a Constitutional amendment. But of course politicians only care about the Constitution when it serves their means…

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium