Should there be a mandatory retirement age for federal justices?

[Derpist]

I prefer an 18 year term for Justices, and a one term limit, with the terms staggered so that one expires every two years. Thus each combination of President and Senate would always have one vacancy to fill (unless there is a death/resignation/impeachment).

The one term limit would end the incentive of biasing in favor of younger nominees, since anyone under about 65 would be very likely to live through their entire term.

There's a law review written by Calabresi and Lindgren with this exact proposal, though I can't link to it due to insufficient posts.

Needless to say, I agree. The lifetime tenure political appointment process is really disgusting and has produced a perverse judicial system - probably the most politicized high-stakes, overpowered judicial system in the world. It's pretty horrific that national policy is determined by when individual die. All of the downsides of a monarchy with none of the upsides.

[Derpist]

The lifetime tenure political appointment process is really disgusting and has produced a perverse judicial system - probably the most politicized high-stakes, overpowered judicial system in the world. It's pretty horrific that national policy is determined by when individual die. All of the downsides of a monarchy with none of the upsides.

The whole point of life tenure is to isolate judges from outside influence. If you know you can stay a judge your whole life, then you're less likely to be swayed in one form or another. So I'm wondering how high-stakes issue comes into play here - They don't really have to care what the world thinks, as there is no retention election or retirement approaching where you need to protect your options, thus risking being impartial.

We could go about creating more restrictions on what kind of outside income they can receive, or other ideas for mitigating conflicts of interest or influence of special interests. Also, maybe, having a large panel of judges, or SCOTUS review/punish certain judges who seem to be issuing rulings based on an agenda outside the law.

I just can't see ending lifetime tenure as positive. At face value, it seems reasonable, but it opens them all up to a lot of influence, unless every judge we put up is so old that they will die on the bench.

Almost every other country in the world has some kind of term limit on judges. And they seem to be doing fine. Not only fine, their judicial system simply seems superior because they don't have the insane political conflicts over the court that then seeps into every aspect of American life.

[Derpist]

I am against any change that would rejigger the basic balance created by the separation of powers that has worked pretty well so far. The Supreme Court does seem overly politicized right now, but that's because we're just in a period right now where every branch of government, heck the entire country and every facet of life, is overly politicized. Setting up regularly scheduled pitched battles over Supreme Court appointments while watering down the independence of the judiciary isn't going to fix that.

What separation of powers? Every single Constitution based on the US constitution has ended in presidential dictatorship or outright military coup (often the former followed by the latter) because our constitution doesn't actually meaningfully separate powers. The judiciary is often complicit in this, especially our actual judiciary which has pretty much consistently upheld executive prerogative on every issue, both domestic and foreign.

Almost all laws made today are administrative law, which is made entirely inside the executive branch with input from America's most powerful corporations as represented by large law firms in the agency rule-making process.

Obama has actually dramatically changed a lot of American energy, environmental, and regulatory policy - changes that took place exclusively within the executive branch w/ the consultation and consent of corporate America. This is because our judiciary has molded for us a system of government they modeled after the German Empire, which unsurprisingly eventually died as a military dictatorship.

The court is intensely politicized, but it doesn't mean it's actually democratic. Americans seem to conflate politics and democracy, which would make a lot more sense if they actually lived in a democratic republic.