{"id":23148,"date":"2022-08-02T11:58:34","date_gmt":"2022-08-02T18:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=23148"},"modified":"2022-08-02T11:58:36","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T18:58:36","slug":"democrats-introduce-bill-to-place-18-year-term-limits-on-supreme-court-justices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2022\/08\/02\/democrats-introduce-bill-to-place-18-year-term-limits-on-supreme-court-justices\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats Introduce Bill to Place 18-Year Term Limits on Supreme Court Justices"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The
The U.S. Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on July 14, 2022.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

BY Sharon Zhang<\/a>,\u00a0Truthout<\/a> PUBLISHEDJuly 27, 2022 (truthout.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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In reaction to the recent onslaught of extremist rulings by far right Supreme Court justices, a group of Democrats introduced a bill on Tuesday that would place term limits on the Supreme Court in order to \u201crestore legitimacy\u201d to the institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill, introduced by<\/a> Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Georgia) in the House and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) in the Senate, would establish 18-year terms for Supreme Court justices. The president would nominate a justice every two years, in the first and third years after a presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawmakers say that the bill is crucial to combat the Supreme Court\u2019s\u00a0rapidly eroding legitimacy<\/a>\u00a0and to restore public confidence in the institution. Public confidence in the Supreme Court\u00a0has sunk to<\/a>\u00a0record lows after the Court\u2019s far-right majority handed\u00a0down a series of<\/a>\u00a0right-wing decisions in June, including overturning\u00a0Roe v. Wade<\/em>, which unleashed dangerous abortion bans across the country. The bill, named the Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization (TERM) Act, has six cosponsors, including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFive of the six conservative justices on the bench were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, and they are now racing to impose their out-of-touch agenda on the American people,\u201d Johnson, chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet, said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cTerm limits are a necessary step toward restoring balance to this radical, unrestrained majority on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill also has the support of Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, who said that the bill is \u201cessential.\u201d Without term limits, \u201cwe will be left with [a] backwards-looking majority for a generation or more,\u201d Nadler said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a justice\u2019s 18 years on the court, they would move to a lifetime \u201csenior\u201d status, in which they would retain their pay and perform certain official duties; this is the same option currently offered to justices if they choose to retire. If there were an unscheduled vacancy among the Court\u2019s nine seats \u2014 whether the result of death, illness, or otherwise \u2014 the justice that most recently moved to senior status would temporarily fill the role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Government watchdogs have long called for<\/a> Supreme Court reforms, including implementing term limits and increasing the number of justices; even justices themselves<\/a> have said that term limits would be prudent and help reduce corruption in the Court. Advocacy groups say that term limits would help depoliticize the process of confirming a justice and the Court itself, while also potentially preventing extremist takeovers of the Court, like the one that has taken place in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This bill is one of a slew of suggestions from Democrats to reform<\/a> the Supreme Court. Democrats have also called for justices to be investigated for potential impeachment<\/a> in response to the Roe<\/em> overturn and the wide array of other authoritarian decisions<\/a> that the Court has handed down in recent months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) introduced the Judicial Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act<\/a>, which would ban federal judges from trading individual stocks and bind the Supreme Court to a code of ethics. The Supreme Court is the only federal court that isn\u2019t bound by law to an ethics code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats have also introduced<\/a> bills to add four seats to the Supreme Court, which would bring the total number of justices to 13. They argue that Republicans have hijacked the<\/a> Court and that expanding it would be a common-sense way to combat the extremism that has infiltrated the institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supreme Court reforms are popular among the American public. Shortly after the Dobbs v. Jackson<\/em> ruling to end federal abortion protections was handed down last month, a Politico<\/em>\/Morning Consult poll found<\/a> that 69 percent of Americans agree that justices should be bound to an ethics code, while 62 percent support implementing term limits. The poll also found that a plurality of respondents support expanding the Supreme Court, at 45 percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY Sharon Zhang,\u00a0Truthout PUBLISHEDJuly 27, 2022 (truthout.org) READING LIST WAR & PEACE Conflict Over Vet Bill Brings Renewed Attention to Military\u2019s Toxic Legacies ECONOMY & LABOR We Can\u2019t Avoid Climate Breakdown Without Reducing Growth, Leading Economist Says POLITICS & ELECTIONS Report: Lobbyists Raked in Record $2 Billion in First 6… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23148"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23149,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23148\/revisions\/23149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}