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Gaetz says he'd support raising motion-to-vacate threshold if GOP enacts Democrat’s reform plan
(www.washingtonexaminer.com)
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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politics
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I’m not familiar with a constitutional ban on term limits, and the idea has been floated by people at fairly high levels. Where do you think the restriction is, and do you think any limits could apply to new justices even if the currents are grandfathered in?
Not the term limits, the donations. The supreme court already rule via Citizens United that money is free speech, which is how PACs and dark money became legal. So to undo that, either the court has to reverse it (yeah right), or there has to be a constitutional amendment (which even the SC can't overturn).
Technically they can by using torturous logic, but then they'd swiftly be impeached.
Article 3, Section 1:
Unlike for President, Senators, and Representatives, no term is given for Federal Judges, which includes the Supreme Court Justices. They "shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour." Once a Federal Judge, always a Federal Judge.
I’m neither a lawyer nor scholar but that wouldn’t seem to preclude term limits or explicitly establish lifetime appointments.
Justices hold it during good behavior, not time limited per the Constitution.
As for members of Congress, a term limit would essentially be adding another qualification to those required by the Constitution.
The Constitutional requirements to be a Representative are:
Term limits would add on another restriction, disqualifying those who'd already served the term. Thus, unconstitutional.
Which is why setting term limits on the office of President required - wait for it - the 22nd Amendment.
Yeah, but they're talking about doing these reforms through regular legislation. I don't think any of them have proposed constitutional amendments to try.
Oh sorry - it may have appeared that I was being snarky towards you. That was not my intent, you are absolutely right. I'm just aggravated by the number of people who think you can "just do things" when you can't.
All good.
But what’s the definition of “Office” in this context? The Office of the President, for example, is defined as a span of four years. President is the title and Office includes both title and time, as do many other political positions.
So what I’m saying is that there’s nothing there that says Congress cannot pass a law saying the Office of a Supreme Court Justice is defined as holding the position for six years.
Because the Constitution specifies term lengths for President, Senators, and Representatives, it is clear that the authors knew when those things needed to be specified. The absence of specifying a term length for Justices means that it is a life term; if the authors had intended there to be a term measured in years, one would have been mentioned.
While I am not a lawyer, I have read enough about intepreting the Constitution to know that that is the very longstanding way to interpret this, and that it is pretty universally accepted.
For the record, I’m playing advocatus diaboli here. I agree that your interpretation is the traditional one.
That said, it has not been challenged, as far as I know, and attributions of original intent (and by now even the application of previous rulings) are the subject of legal argumentation and opinion. My point was that the Constitution does not explicitly set a temporal component to the term of a federal justice, and it does not explicitly forbid one. This it would not take a constitutional amendment to set a term limit, but rather a finding that the law did not violate the constitution (which again would come down to an interpretation since it’s not explicitly set).
Article 3, Section 2:
Because judicial review is inferred (not stated) in the Constitution, and because Congress has explicit permission to regulate the judiciary (including the Supreme Court), Congress can effectively do what they want.
This means that Congress can put a clause stating "this law is not subject to judicial review" and there is literally nothing SCOTUS can do about it. It's a check on SCOTUS. Congress has full power over judicial review.
Congress has tried exercising this clause in the past (to force judicial review to require a 2/3 majority of justices), but it's always died in the Senate.
That can limit their appellate jurisdiction. Congress can't restrict the court's original jurisdiction. A state could sue the federal government over this and as a case where a state is a party, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction.