Quote:
Originally Posted by JPhillips
I'd be all for a twenty or twenty-five year term limit on SCOTUS. The whole point of a lifetime term was to take politics out of the equation, but it's obvious retirements are based almost solely on politics.
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I'd think that I would like something like that, too. Maybe twenty years then they go into a forced senior status.
Basically, the system now provides too much incentive for nominating people as young as possible to the bench. I think that some great nominees are potentially lost to the Court b/c they are too old. If people only got 20 years, there would be less incentive to put a 45 year old on the bench, and a 60 year old would get more of a look than he/she does now.
Of course, mandatory retirement would make the process more political, too. If we knew for certain that three Justices would be forced to retire during a certain four-year period, it would become that much more of a factor in Presidential elections.
So, it isn't as much of a slam dunk good idea as it seems on the surface. But, on balance, I think that I would be for it.