It will take decades to fix the Supreme Court
The democrat’s solution to a partisan court
Let’s be honest: President Trump’s Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett is only the last move on an unfair game that is the nomination process to the Supreme Court. To put in numbers, over the last 44 years, Republicans had 6 presidential terms (24 years) in which they appointed 15 Justices to the Supreme Court. In the same period, Democrats had 5 terms (20 years) and appointed only 4 Justices.
Disparities like this show how broken the system is. To fix a partisan Supreme Court, I have argued that retirement age and/or a fixed-term limit should be put in place. I also have argued against Court-Packing.
The reason I’m against court-packing is that it is a partisan solution to a structural problem. There would be no reason to think that the losing side wouldn’t try the same trick next time. When it comes to retirement age and fixed-terms, two things stand out: age discrimination issues and Constitutional reform.
I don’t think there’s an age discrimination bias in setting a mandatory retirement age. Supreme Court Justices are not daily jobs, and the purpose of the bill would not be to prevent elders from getting the job. For me, the “spirit of the law” would be to allow the renewal of the court. In any case, it would be the…
