The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
If Alito's ass is all butthurt about being criticized for voting for shitty decisions. Maybe instead of pissing and moaning about it, he can like resign for SCOTUS and then his dumb fucking ass can't make any more shitting votes that will get him criticized. God I'm so sick and tired of conservatives because they are such petty and entitled little shits.
The Court is not a political branch. Really. Because I say so.
(No you shut up!)
In which case I am sure he would be fine if we added a few justices in order to lower the workload.
There's some decent legal scholarship making this argument, particularly since the Court has vastly cut back on its working hours. CJ Rehnquist famously stopped evening and weekend meetings since they interfered with his golfing. And no, not joking. The Court's hours and output have continued to decline since.
One of the better suggestions I've heard was to split SCOTUS into separate courts based on specialty (for example, a 9 justice court focused on corporate law, another on immigration, etc.). Justices would rotate from other courts to serve their terms, returning to their previous positions after their time on SCOTUS expired. No judge could serve more than one term on SCOTUS in their lifetime (some have a limit on consecutive terms but no lifetime limit).
This would simultaneously solve the problem with life tenure and vastly increase the clarity, quality, and volume of SCOTUS decisions on highly technical topics. Furthermore, the shadow docket would largely cease to exist. Each section should have the time and resources to resolve cases in full, including public hearings and signed decisions with actual legal reasoning attached.
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
Though you could do that with not-quite-Supreme courts and then have the actual SCOTUS as an en banc of all the specialty courts that only rarely met I suppose?
There's some decent legal scholarship making this argument, particularly since the Court has vastly cut back on its working hours. CJ Rehnquist famously stopped evening and weekend meetings since they interfered with his golfing. And no, not joking. The Court's hours and output have continued to decline since.
The problem here is I don't think Alito is making an argument in good faith. This court had no problem rushing a judgement though when it was in aid of Christian churches, in the middle of an historic pandemic, with all the bad science and faulty reasoning within. And if they were really so overworked I doubt they'd all have the time to be making the multiple speeches we've heard since the TX ruling. Or running off to retreats, hunting trips, and whatever else they regularly get up to. Or living well into their late 80's.
No, I think the problem is that conservative thought has turned utterly fascist at this point and hiding that fact in judicial opinions is getting so hard that Alito thought he found a sweet little loophole with unsigned administrative rulings. And now's he mad that he got caught.
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
Though you could do that with not-quite-Supreme courts and then have the actual SCOTUS as an en banc of all the specialty courts that only rarely met I suppose?
Still could be one court divided into panels. It happens at lower levels.
It never ceases to amaze me how somebody can have THAT much power, be THAT insulates from consequences and accountaility, but still feels compelled to whine because someone hurt their fee fees.
Like, christ, the whole point of being that powerful is that you don't have to give a shit about what other people think!
It never ceases to amaze me how somebody can have THAT much power, be THAT insulates from consequences and accountaility, but still feels compelled to whine because someone hurt their fee fees.
Like, christ, the whole point of being that powerful is that you don't have to give a shit about what other people think!
That's where you're wrong.
The point of being that powerful is that you can force other people to bend to your will. It's not enough to not have to care about them - they have to be made to praise you.
Also possible that he could get long covid, granted not sure what the odds on that are for people with the vaccine.
Maybe the long covid will boof the devils triangle out of his brain, and he'll start making humane decisions.
And yeah, if Alito is so hurt by people questioning and criticizing his choices and actions, maybe he's better off not being on a court that is the final word, and therefore the focus of attention, in major decisions. Go retire, relax, don't get people up in your shit anymore. Not that Alito hasn't always been a shitheel, but his rhetoric lately indicates that something has shifted in his frame of reference to push him beyond just general anti-human conservatism, to full blown victimization paranoia.
Just another reminder that we need term limits (and potentially age limits, or some other measure of capacity and function) on all positions in government.
Also possible that he could get long covid, granted not sure what the odds on that are for people with the vaccine.
Maybe the long covid will boof the devils triangle out of his brain, and he'll start making humane decisions.
And yeah, if Alito is so hurt by people questioning and criticizing his choices and actions, maybe he's better off not being on a court that is the final word, and therefore the focus of attention, in major decisions. Go retire, relax, don't get people up in your shit anymore. Not that Alito hasn't always been a shitheel, but his rhetoric lately indicates that something has shifted in his frame of reference to push him beyond just general anti-human conservatism, to full blown victimization paranoia.
Just another reminder that we need term limits (and potentially age limits, or some other measure of capacity and function) on all positions in government.
Term limits are bad.
Bad people are also bad. But term limits do not prevent bad people. They more often prevent people with institutional knowledge from being able to utilize it.
Also possible that he could get long covid, granted not sure what the odds on that are for people with the vaccine.
Maybe the long covid will boof the devils triangle out of his brain, and he'll start making humane decisions.
And yeah, if Alito is so hurt by people questioning and criticizing his choices and actions, maybe he's better off not being on a court that is the final word, and therefore the focus of attention, in major decisions. Go retire, relax, don't get people up in your shit anymore. Not that Alito hasn't always been a shitheel, but his rhetoric lately indicates that something has shifted in his frame of reference to push him beyond just general anti-human conservatism, to full blown victimization paranoia.
Just another reminder that we need term limits (and potentially age limits, or some other measure of capacity and function) on all positions in government.
Term limits are bad.
Bad people are also bad. But term limits do not prevent bad people. They more often prevent people with institutional knowledge from being able to utilize it.
Also possible that he could get long covid, granted not sure what the odds on that are for people with the vaccine.
Maybe the long covid will boof the devils triangle out of his brain, and he'll start making humane decisions.
And yeah, if Alito is so hurt by people questioning and criticizing his choices and actions, maybe he's better off not being on a court that is the final word, and therefore the focus of attention, in major decisions. Go retire, relax, don't get people up in your shit anymore. Not that Alito hasn't always been a shitheel, but his rhetoric lately indicates that something has shifted in his frame of reference to push him beyond just general anti-human conservatism, to full blown victimization paranoia.
Just another reminder that we need term limits (and potentially age limits, or some other measure of capacity and function) on all positions in government.
Term limits are bad.
Bad people are also bad. But term limits do not prevent bad people. They more often prevent people with institutional knowledge from being able to utilize it.
While in the case of Congress, I agree with you wholeheartedly, I think the Supreme Court would be much better served as an actual place of deliberation, and not the law profession's most elite nursing home.
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
It never ceases to amaze me how somebody can have THAT much power, be THAT insulates from consequences and accountaility, but still feels compelled to whine because someone hurt their fee fees.
Like, christ, the whole point of being that powerful is that you don't have to give a shit about what other people think!
Turns out power can't fill the gaping void in a stunted soul fix basic insecurity.
Also possible that he could get long covid, granted not sure what the odds on that are for people with the vaccine.
Maybe the long covid will boof the devils triangle out of his brain, and he'll start making humane decisions.
And yeah, if Alito is so hurt by people questioning and criticizing his choices and actions, maybe he's better off not being on a court that is the final word, and therefore the focus of attention, in major decisions. Go retire, relax, don't get people up in your shit anymore. Not that Alito hasn't always been a shitheel, but his rhetoric lately indicates that something has shifted in his frame of reference to push him beyond just general anti-human conservatism, to full blown victimization paranoia.
Just another reminder that we need term limits (and potentially age limits, or some other measure of capacity and function) on all positions in government.
Term limits are bad.
Bad people are also bad. But term limits do not prevent bad people. They more often prevent people with institutional knowledge from being able to utilize it.
No one should ever be allowed in a position of power indefinitely. There is no justification for it.
Institutional knowledge is just shorthand for "people who ensure things don't change".
If you're looking to maintain the status quo indefinitely, sure, no term limits, great.
But if you are aware that no system is perfect, and can and should change to meet the needs of the time, or shifts in culture, then yeah, no one needs to be in any position as long as they want.
Hell, I'll throw the idea of no term limits a bone: I'll agree to no term limits if we can have ranked choice voting or proportional representation, outright bans on corporate donations and identity protected funding of lobbying groups and pacs, abolition of the Senate, a constitutional amendment that recalculates the number of people a representative can represent, before another seat must be created, and an amendment that makes elections last a week, with at least one of the days a national holiday that requires every person eligible to vote a full day off to do so either on the holiday, or during that week if in a job that is necessary to not be closed during the federal holiday, automatic registration and bans on perpetual disenfranchisement for felons.
Even then, though, I'd be hard to convince that appointed positions wouldn't still benefit from limits. No president should be able to have as much control as they currently do, in the judicial system, simply because they were in a place at the "right" time. Sure, by all means, give the party who sits in the White House the choice, but not have that be so permanent to bind future generations who weren't born, or old enough to vote, to someone to decide their fate, who they had no say in whatsoever.
A reminder that the apportionment amendment is theoretically still live and just needs states to ratify it.
It would increase the size of the House to over a thousand seats because it was written with a much smaller population in mind... but it would also make it much more sane. Also it would make some districts in NYC that are like, a single square mile in size.
I'm strongly in favor of term limits for Congress. Don't care nearly as much about their supposed institutional knowledge as I do about preventing the "shitty incumbent stays forever" situation, and about preventing the networks of concentrated power from ossifying, or at least mitigating that problem.
Also possible that he could get long covid, granted not sure what the odds on that are for people with the vaccine.
Maybe the long covid will boof the devils triangle out of his brain, and he'll start making humane decisions.
And yeah, if Alito is so hurt by people questioning and criticizing his choices and actions, maybe he's better off not being on a court that is the final word, and therefore the focus of attention, in major decisions. Go retire, relax, don't get people up in your shit anymore. Not that Alito hasn't always been a shitheel, but his rhetoric lately indicates that something has shifted in his frame of reference to push him beyond just general anti-human conservatism, to full blown victimization paranoia.
Just another reminder that we need term limits (and potentially age limits, or some other measure of capacity and function) on all positions in government.
It isn't surprising in the least that Alito is adopting a strategy of loudly proclaiming his own victimization. Rabid conservative ideology really only holds water when it's framed through the lens of victimization. Conservatism quite seriously depends on the boogieman of victimization to act as a bulwark against its own contradictions and cruelty. The people that stormed the capital thought and still believe themselves to be victims. Victims of who, of what? That changes depending on who is answering the question. They need to cast themselves as victims to be taken seriously at all, because otherwise the positions they support are pants-on-head stupid out of the gate.
Alito is also inoculated from any sort of repercussions or consequences of any kind, so him whining about being victimized is especially telling. Being merely criticized for enacting a nakedly political agenda is likely the first time he's ever experienced anything resembling pushback, and he simply can't handle it. The merest pushback gets a cranky screed about victimization? OK. "People are upset that I'm an obvious shill, and that makes me depressed." I don't know what to tell you man, be less shitty.
SCOTUS needs term limits, since it's likely always going to be a small body. Even if we ran with the setup of having multiple SCOTUSs that specialized on certain laws, those would all be small bodies. Term limits prevents a scenario where they stay on well passed the point of even being able to understand the current state of affairs for most citizens and residents of the US. Also discourages shit where assholes appoint some super young chuckle fuck to the bench, like how Trump tried it.
I'd also be in favor of a mandatory retirement age across the board for SCOTUS & Congress. Unlike SCOTUS Congress doesn't need term limits because it's a much larger body and if all things are done right, someone out of touch is going to get voted out most of the time. You only do the retirement thing, so you have at least one lever if a district or state gets too attached to their congress critter, for whatever reason, who is starting to go mentally.
With an over 80% incumbency retention rate as of 2018, I guarantee there are plenty of out of touch legislators coasting by on constituent ignorance.
Regardless of that though, the larger point is true, lifetime appointments lead to people clutching onto the reins of relevancy until grim death finally has it's vote, and I think we can do much, much better than that to improve the efficacy of our justice system.
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Also possible that he could get long covid, granted not sure what the odds on that are for people with the vaccine.
Maybe the long covid will boof the devils triangle out of his brain, and he'll start making humane decisions.
And yeah, if Alito is so hurt by people questioning and criticizing his choices and actions, maybe he's better off not being on a court that is the final word, and therefore the focus of attention, in major decisions. Go retire, relax, don't get people up in your shit anymore. Not that Alito hasn't always been a shitheel, but his rhetoric lately indicates that something has shifted in his frame of reference to push him beyond just general anti-human conservatism, to full blown victimization paranoia.
Just another reminder that we need term limits (and potentially age limits, or some other measure of capacity and function) on all positions in government.
Term limits are bad.
Bad people are also bad. But term limits do not prevent bad people. They more often prevent people with institutional knowledge from being able to utilize it.
No one should ever be allowed in a position of power indefinitely. There is no justification for it.
Institutional knowledge is just shorthand for "people who ensure things don't change".
No, it's not. Institutional knowledge is knowing how the system works. If the people running the government don't know it, the people lobbying them will instead. This is why things like ALEC exist.
I'm strongly in favor of term limits for Congress. Don't care nearly as much about their supposed institutional knowledge as I do about preventing the "shitty incumbent stays forever" situation, and about preventing the networks of concentrated power from ossifying, or at least mitigating that problem.
Terms limits don't do shit to prevent any of this. The networks of concentrated power just move even more into the unelected parts of the government. To think tanks and lobbying interests.
Term limits for SCOTUS justices makes a lot more sense though since it would be literally the only way they could leave office other then the randomness of death.
Term limits are important because at some point institutional knowledge becomes cargo cult entrenchment.
Especially because as has been pointed out in this thread multiple times, the historic mean for the court is one of protecting the elite and stamping out any form of progressive policy. And you better believe that an 80 year old, rich white person is going to protect the status quo 9 out of 10 times.
But honestly I think term limits won't actually solve the problem, I feel like they just shift the problem to a different system.
Dark_Side on
0
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited October 2021
If you wanna see the issue with term limits, look no further than the state elections for Judges.
EDIT: To clarify. Yes, there is an issue here. But there's not some panacea which will fix everything. This is a complicated issue with no easy answers
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Also possible that he could get long covid, granted not sure what the odds on that are for people with the vaccine.
Maybe the long covid will boof the devils triangle out of his brain, and he'll start making humane decisions.
And yeah, if Alito is so hurt by people questioning and criticizing his choices and actions, maybe he's better off not being on a court that is the final word, and therefore the focus of attention, in major decisions. Go retire, relax, don't get people up in your shit anymore. Not that Alito hasn't always been a shitheel, but his rhetoric lately indicates that something has shifted in his frame of reference to push him beyond just general anti-human conservatism, to full blown victimization paranoia.
Just another reminder that we need term limits (and potentially age limits, or some other measure of capacity and function) on all positions in government.
Term limits are bad.
Bad people are also bad. But term limits do not prevent bad people. They more often prevent people with institutional knowledge from being able to utilize it.
No one should ever be allowed in a position of power indefinitely. There is no justification for it.
Institutional knowledge is just shorthand for "people who ensure things don't change".
No, it's not. Institutional knowledge is knowing how the system works. If the people running the government don't know it, the people lobbying them will instead. This is why things like ALEC exist.
I'm strongly in favor of term limits for Congress. Don't care nearly as much about their supposed institutional knowledge as I do about preventing the "shitty incumbent stays forever" situation, and about preventing the networks of concentrated power from ossifying, or at least mitigating that problem.
Terms limits don't do shit to prevent any of this. The networks of concentrated power just move even more into the unelected parts of the government. To think tanks and lobbying interests.
It's not an either or proposition for term limits or not, and letting lobbyists run rampant or not.
And you're wrong that term limits wouldn't do anything to prevent the situation created by perpetual incumbency, and the rates we reelect senators and representatives, despite the legislature having absurdly low approval ratings.
The situation we are in now required the better part of a century to create, and it's not a coincidence that for massive swaths of that time there were elected people in power that had been there for good chunks of their lives. The sort of consistency needed to create the strangling control corporations and lobbyists have also requires having people where they want them, people they've bought and paid for, for as long as possible.
And those same people are frequently hoisted up as the "wise" bellweathers who are full of "institutional knowledge" that are supposed to guide the lowly freshmen. Joe Manchin isn't teaching anyone how to best represent their citizens, nor is McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi, and so on. They're only helping people know how their system works, not how the system itself could work.
Here's the thing about that knowledge, and "how the system works"; it's all arbitrary rules. I don't mean just philosophically, I mean, actual Senate and House rules are largely non-binding, largely tradition based, and largely unnecessary for the functioning of the government. And I'm not suggesting throwing it all out, having no decorum or anything like that; I'm suggesting that the reason it's so convoluted and complicated to do your job in the legislature is less because it's inherently complex, and more because it is intentionally complex. It's the legislative parallel to "financial innovation" in the banking and finance industry, it's systems set up to be boring and complex purely to keep everyone else away and those in power, in power.
Get rid of corporate backed lobbyists, put in term limits. Don't let anyone be in an elected office long enough to establish the amount of authority and control any one person or small group of people have, and don't let money ever be able to invest in anyone long enough that their claws are so deep that there's no way to change, or remove, them.
As far as SCOTUS goes, I honestly can't think of any justifiable reason someone would have to defend having no term limits. I can think of reasons, but not any that are really defensible other than either tradition or...?
Term limits are important because at some point institutional knowledge becomes cargo cult entrenchment.
Especially because as has been pointed out in this thread multiple times, the historic mean for the court is one of protecting the elite and stamping out any form of progressive policy. And you better believe that an 80 year old, rich white person is going to protect the status quo 9 out of 10 times.
But honestly I think term limits won't actually solve the problem, I feel like they just shift the problem to a different system.
The elite capture of the legal system has less to do with long serving judges, and more to do with the fact that a large percentage of the federal judiciary comes out of three law schools tied to elite schools.
People don't vote for the legislature as a whole so using the approval rating for the entire body as a proxy for claiming things must be corrupted the incumbrance rate is high! is ludicrous.
Manchin is *old* but he's not in any situation that would be addressed by term limits. The dude has won reelection one (1) time.
I am in general not the biggest fan of someone beyond the average lifespan of the species maintaining power over all current generations without their consent.
Term limits for appointed positions
Age limits for elected positions, based on average age or something (I’m not as wedded to this one given age limits are fraught to begin with and the election serves as the eligibility filter anyway)
If you think term limits for Congress would solve literally any problem, may I present the Michigan legislature?
The idea that your vote is a moral statement about you or who you vote for is some backwards ass libertarian nonsense. Your vote is about society. Vote to protect the vulnerable.
Also possible that he could get long covid, granted not sure what the odds on that are for people with the vaccine.
Maybe the long covid will boof the devils triangle out of his brain, and he'll start making humane decisions.
And yeah, if Alito is so hurt by people questioning and criticizing his choices and actions, maybe he's better off not being on a court that is the final word, and therefore the focus of attention, in major decisions. Go retire, relax, don't get people up in your shit anymore. Not that Alito hasn't always been a shitheel, but his rhetoric lately indicates that something has shifted in his frame of reference to push him beyond just general anti-human conservatism, to full blown victimization paranoia.
Just another reminder that we need term limits (and potentially age limits, or some other measure of capacity and function) on all positions in government.
Term limits are bad.
Bad people are also bad. But term limits do not prevent bad people. They more often prevent people with institutional knowledge from being able to utilize it.
No one should ever be allowed in a position of power indefinitely. There is no justification for it.
Institutional knowledge is just shorthand for "people who ensure things don't change".
No, it's not. Institutional knowledge is knowing how the system works. If the people running the government don't know it, the people lobbying them will instead. This is why things like ALEC exist.
I'm strongly in favor of term limits for Congress. Don't care nearly as much about their supposed institutional knowledge as I do about preventing the "shitty incumbent stays forever" situation, and about preventing the networks of concentrated power from ossifying, or at least mitigating that problem.
Terms limits don't do shit to prevent any of this. The networks of concentrated power just move even more into the unelected parts of the government. To think tanks and lobbying interests.
It's not an either or proposition for term limits or not, and letting lobbyists run rampant or not.
And you're wrong that term limits wouldn't do anything to prevent the situation created by perpetual incumbency, and the rates we reelect senators and representatives, despite the legislature having absurdly low approval ratings.
The situation we are in now required the better part of a century to create, and it's not a coincidence that for massive swaths of that time there were elected people in power that had been there for good chunks of their lives. The sort of consistency needed to create the strangling control corporations and lobbyists have also requires having people where they want them, people they've bought and paid for, for as long as possible.
And those same people are frequently hoisted up as the "wise" bellweathers who are full of "institutional knowledge" that are supposed to guide the lowly freshmen. Joe Manchin isn't teaching anyone how to best represent their citizens, nor is McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi, and so on. They're only helping people know how their system works, not how the system itself could work.
Here's the thing about that knowledge, and "how the system works"; it's all arbitrary rules. I don't mean just philosophically, I mean, actual Senate and House rules are largely non-binding, largely tradition based, and largely unnecessary for the functioning of the government. And I'm not suggesting throwing it all out, having no decorum or anything like that; I'm suggesting that the reason it's so convoluted and complicated to do your job in the legislature is less because it's inherently complex, and more because it is intentionally complex. It's the legislative parallel to "financial innovation" in the banking and finance industry, it's systems set up to be boring and complex purely to keep everyone else away and those in power, in power.
Get rid of corporate backed lobbyists, put in term limits. Don't let anyone be in an elected office long enough to establish the amount of authority and control any one person or small group of people have, and don't let money ever be able to invest in anyone long enough that their claws are so deep that there's no way to change, or remove, them.
As far as SCOTUS goes, I honestly can't think of any justifiable reason someone would have to defend having no term limits. I can think of reasons, but not any that are really defensible other than either tradition or...?
Congress as a whole is unpopular. But individual congressmembers are not. Or the parties they represent are not. Even members we might think of as having "bad numbers" will still probably be running 10+ points ahead of the overall congressional approval rating. It's important to remember that congressional approval rating is not an average of individual approval ratings, it's a separate question for the institution as a whole. Most measures don't even distinguish one chamber from the other.
And if you wanna look at how these politics actually play out, we can look at what's going on right now. Pelosi has been in federal office since the late 80s. Schumer since the early 80s. Biden since the early 70s. The people blocking legislation that would actually shift the status quo right now are people like Manchin and Sinema. Manchin has been in federal office only since 2010. Sinema since only 2019. The people influencing and lobbying and bribing them though? They've been in DC for ages and will be there long after Manchin and Sinema are gone, however they leave office. Term limits won't do shit about either the Senators or the Lobbyists in question there.
We can also look at ALEC. The American Legislative Exchange Council is literally an unelected non-government group that just writes legislation for conservatives. Those politicians don't know or understand what that legislation actually says but that doesn't matter. They just pass it. That's the kind of place institutional knowledge can end up and term limits don't do shit about it.
For elected officials the reasoning just doesn't make sense. Term limits for judges and justices make sense though because those positions are appointed for life and the seats come up randomly based on death and health issues or active gaming of the system. It's how a 1 term president gets to shape more of the highest court then a 2 term one.
You can propose justices having definite (e.g. 10 year) terms without going all the way to term limits. I think the Federal Reserve Board of Governors is an example of a successful balance of very long but definite terms to protect against political interference.
As has been mentioned, term limits for legislators don’t work out nearly as well as they are emotionally satisfying.
I do however see the point in term limits for the executive as a defense against tyranny. Typically when a dictator takes over, it’s out of an executive position not a legislative one.
Posts
There's some decent legal scholarship making this argument, particularly since the Court has vastly cut back on its working hours. CJ Rehnquist famously stopped evening and weekend meetings since they interfered with his golfing. And no, not joking. The Court's hours and output have continued to decline since.
One of the better suggestions I've heard was to split SCOTUS into separate courts based on specialty (for example, a 9 justice court focused on corporate law, another on immigration, etc.). Justices would rotate from other courts to serve their terms, returning to their previous positions after their time on SCOTUS expired. No judge could serve more than one term on SCOTUS in their lifetime (some have a limit on consecutive terms but no lifetime limit).
This would simultaneously solve the problem with life tenure and vastly increase the clarity, quality, and volume of SCOTUS decisions on highly technical topics. Furthermore, the shadow docket would largely cease to exist. Each section should have the time and resources to resolve cases in full, including public hearings and signed decisions with actual legal reasoning attached.
Though you could do that with not-quite-Supreme courts and then have the actual SCOTUS as an en banc of all the specialty courts that only rarely met I suppose?
no way they'll go for that.
Well once Scalia died the vaccum needed to be filled.
The problem here is I don't think Alito is making an argument in good faith. This court had no problem rushing a judgement though when it was in aid of Christian churches, in the middle of an historic pandemic, with all the bad science and faulty reasoning within. And if they were really so overworked I doubt they'd all have the time to be making the multiple speeches we've heard since the TX ruling. Or running off to retreats, hunting trips, and whatever else they regularly get up to. Or living well into their late 80's.
No, I think the problem is that conservative thought has turned utterly fascist at this point and hiding that fact in judicial opinions is getting so hard that Alito thought he found a sweet little loophole with unsigned administrative rulings. And now's he mad that he got caught.
Still could be one court divided into panels. It happens at lower levels.
Don’t get your hopes up, he was fully vaccinated.
Hey the odds are 1 out of a 100 000, but considering his age its probably closer to 1 in a 1000 000 and 1 in a 1000 000 crop up 9 times out of 10.
Like, christ, the whole point of being that powerful is that you don't have to give a shit about what other people think!
That's where you're wrong.
The point of being that powerful is that you can force other people to bend to your will. It's not enough to not have to care about them - they have to be made to praise you.
Maybe the long covid will boof the devils triangle out of his brain, and he'll start making humane decisions.
And yeah, if Alito is so hurt by people questioning and criticizing his choices and actions, maybe he's better off not being on a court that is the final word, and therefore the focus of attention, in major decisions. Go retire, relax, don't get people up in your shit anymore. Not that Alito hasn't always been a shitheel, but his rhetoric lately indicates that something has shifted in his frame of reference to push him beyond just general anti-human conservatism, to full blown victimization paranoia.
Just another reminder that we need term limits (and potentially age limits, or some other measure of capacity and function) on all positions in government.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
It helps keep their malfeasance in the public spotlight
Term limits are bad.
Bad people are also bad. But term limits do not prevent bad people. They more often prevent people with institutional knowledge from being able to utilize it.
18 years seems like a reasonable term limit.
While in the case of Congress, I agree with you wholeheartedly, I think the Supreme Court would be much better served as an actual place of deliberation, and not the law profession's most elite nursing home.
Turns out power can't fill the gaping void in a stunted soul fix basic insecurity.
No one should ever be allowed in a position of power indefinitely. There is no justification for it.
Institutional knowledge is just shorthand for "people who ensure things don't change".
If you're looking to maintain the status quo indefinitely, sure, no term limits, great.
But if you are aware that no system is perfect, and can and should change to meet the needs of the time, or shifts in culture, then yeah, no one needs to be in any position as long as they want.
Hell, I'll throw the idea of no term limits a bone: I'll agree to no term limits if we can have ranked choice voting or proportional representation, outright bans on corporate donations and identity protected funding of lobbying groups and pacs, abolition of the Senate, a constitutional amendment that recalculates the number of people a representative can represent, before another seat must be created, and an amendment that makes elections last a week, with at least one of the days a national holiday that requires every person eligible to vote a full day off to do so either on the holiday, or during that week if in a job that is necessary to not be closed during the federal holiday, automatic registration and bans on perpetual disenfranchisement for felons.
Even then, though, I'd be hard to convince that appointed positions wouldn't still benefit from limits. No president should be able to have as much control as they currently do, in the judicial system, simply because they were in a place at the "right" time. Sure, by all means, give the party who sits in the White House the choice, but not have that be so permanent to bind future generations who weren't born, or old enough to vote, to someone to decide their fate, who they had no say in whatsoever.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
It would increase the size of the House to over a thousand seats because it was written with a much smaller population in mind... but it would also make it much more sane. Also it would make some districts in NYC that are like, a single square mile in size.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
SCOTUS should probably have limits too.
It isn't surprising in the least that Alito is adopting a strategy of loudly proclaiming his own victimization. Rabid conservative ideology really only holds water when it's framed through the lens of victimization. Conservatism quite seriously depends on the boogieman of victimization to act as a bulwark against its own contradictions and cruelty. The people that stormed the capital thought and still believe themselves to be victims. Victims of who, of what? That changes depending on who is answering the question. They need to cast themselves as victims to be taken seriously at all, because otherwise the positions they support are pants-on-head stupid out of the gate.
Alito is also inoculated from any sort of repercussions or consequences of any kind, so him whining about being victimized is especially telling. Being merely criticized for enacting a nakedly political agenda is likely the first time he's ever experienced anything resembling pushback, and he simply can't handle it. The merest pushback gets a cranky screed about victimization? OK. "People are upset that I'm an obvious shill, and that makes me depressed." I don't know what to tell you man, be less shitty.
I'd also be in favor of a mandatory retirement age across the board for SCOTUS & Congress. Unlike SCOTUS Congress doesn't need term limits because it's a much larger body and if all things are done right, someone out of touch is going to get voted out most of the time. You only do the retirement thing, so you have at least one lever if a district or state gets too attached to their congress critter, for whatever reason, who is starting to go mentally.
With an over 80% incumbency retention rate as of 2018, I guarantee there are plenty of out of touch legislators coasting by on constituent ignorance.
Regardless of that though, the larger point is true, lifetime appointments lead to people clutching onto the reins of relevancy until grim death finally has it's vote, and I think we can do much, much better than that to improve the efficacy of our justice system.
No, it's not. Institutional knowledge is knowing how the system works. If the people running the government don't know it, the people lobbying them will instead. This is why things like ALEC exist.
Terms limits don't do shit to prevent any of this. The networks of concentrated power just move even more into the unelected parts of the government. To think tanks and lobbying interests.
For elected positions it's just kinda dumb.
Especially because as has been pointed out in this thread multiple times, the historic mean for the court is one of protecting the elite and stamping out any form of progressive policy. And you better believe that an 80 year old, rich white person is going to protect the status quo 9 out of 10 times.
But honestly I think term limits won't actually solve the problem, I feel like they just shift the problem to a different system.
EDIT: To clarify. Yes, there is an issue here. But there's not some panacea which will fix everything. This is a complicated issue with no easy answers
It's not an either or proposition for term limits or not, and letting lobbyists run rampant or not.
And you're wrong that term limits wouldn't do anything to prevent the situation created by perpetual incumbency, and the rates we reelect senators and representatives, despite the legislature having absurdly low approval ratings.
The situation we are in now required the better part of a century to create, and it's not a coincidence that for massive swaths of that time there were elected people in power that had been there for good chunks of their lives. The sort of consistency needed to create the strangling control corporations and lobbyists have also requires having people where they want them, people they've bought and paid for, for as long as possible.
And those same people are frequently hoisted up as the "wise" bellweathers who are full of "institutional knowledge" that are supposed to guide the lowly freshmen. Joe Manchin isn't teaching anyone how to best represent their citizens, nor is McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi, and so on. They're only helping people know how their system works, not how the system itself could work.
Here's the thing about that knowledge, and "how the system works"; it's all arbitrary rules. I don't mean just philosophically, I mean, actual Senate and House rules are largely non-binding, largely tradition based, and largely unnecessary for the functioning of the government. And I'm not suggesting throwing it all out, having no decorum or anything like that; I'm suggesting that the reason it's so convoluted and complicated to do your job in the legislature is less because it's inherently complex, and more because it is intentionally complex. It's the legislative parallel to "financial innovation" in the banking and finance industry, it's systems set up to be boring and complex purely to keep everyone else away and those in power, in power.
Get rid of corporate backed lobbyists, put in term limits. Don't let anyone be in an elected office long enough to establish the amount of authority and control any one person or small group of people have, and don't let money ever be able to invest in anyone long enough that their claws are so deep that there's no way to change, or remove, them.
As far as SCOTUS goes, I honestly can't think of any justifiable reason someone would have to defend having no term limits. I can think of reasons, but not any that are really defensible other than either tradition or...?
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
The elite capture of the legal system has less to do with long serving judges, and more to do with the fact that a large percentage of the federal judiciary comes out of three law schools tied to elite schools.
Manchin is *old* but he's not in any situation that would be addressed by term limits. The dude has won reelection one (1) time.
Age limits for elected positions, based on average age or something (I’m not as wedded to this one given age limits are fraught to begin with and the election serves as the eligibility filter anyway)
Governments and societies being shitty cannot be solved by any single action.
Congress as a whole is unpopular. But individual congressmembers are not. Or the parties they represent are not. Even members we might think of as having "bad numbers" will still probably be running 10+ points ahead of the overall congressional approval rating. It's important to remember that congressional approval rating is not an average of individual approval ratings, it's a separate question for the institution as a whole. Most measures don't even distinguish one chamber from the other.
And if you wanna look at how these politics actually play out, we can look at what's going on right now. Pelosi has been in federal office since the late 80s. Schumer since the early 80s. Biden since the early 70s. The people blocking legislation that would actually shift the status quo right now are people like Manchin and Sinema. Manchin has been in federal office only since 2010. Sinema since only 2019. The people influencing and lobbying and bribing them though? They've been in DC for ages and will be there long after Manchin and Sinema are gone, however they leave office. Term limits won't do shit about either the Senators or the Lobbyists in question there.
We can also look at ALEC. The American Legislative Exchange Council is literally an unelected non-government group that just writes legislation for conservatives. Those politicians don't know or understand what that legislation actually says but that doesn't matter. They just pass it. That's the kind of place institutional knowledge can end up and term limits don't do shit about it.
For elected officials the reasoning just doesn't make sense. Term limits for judges and justices make sense though because those positions are appointed for life and the seats come up randomly based on death and health issues or active gaming of the system. It's how a 1 term president gets to shape more of the highest court then a 2 term one.
As has been mentioned, term limits for legislators don’t work out nearly as well as they are emotionally satisfying.
I do however see the point in term limits for the executive as a defense against tyranny. Typically when a dictator takes over, it’s out of an executive position not a legislative one.