The corrupt activities of Justices Thomas and Alito, for which there were no repercussions by SCOTUS, once again brings the need for reform of the Supreme Court, indeed of the whole court system, to the fore again.
Lifetime appointments must be abolished in favor of set terms which can be renewable if the president and the Senate agree. When Article III of the Constitution was written bestowing lifetime tenures of Court appointees, life expectancies were much lower, and it was not anticipated that some justices would remain on the Court 20 or 30 years, or even longer. Clarence Thomas was appointed by President George H.W Bush in 1991 and has been serving for 32 years. Article III also states that the justices “shall hold their Offices during good Behavior.”
Yet Justices Thomas and Alito have not been removed from their offices despite corrupt actions. This is because they are political appointees and not unbiased in their judicial rulings. They cannot be impeached as they have the support of Republicans in Congress despite being beholden to outside individuals for “gifts” they received which actually can be seen as bribes.
Though a Constitutional Amendment would be necessary to change the manner of appointment, a fair justice system demands that it be done. Though the Democrats won the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 presidential elections, 6 of the 9 Supreme Court justices have been appointed by Republican presidents and are definite conservatives.
Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans held up the appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016, ostensibly because it was Obama’s last year in office and they wanted to wait for the election. Then the Republican Senate appointed Amy Comey Barrett to the Court in the last months of Trump’s presidency, seeing no hypocrisy in what they had done. Trump in one term in office appointed 3 justices. Obama in 2 terms as president only appointed 2 justices.
There are several ways appointments to the Supreme Court could be reformed. One would be to limit the years a justice could serve to 9 years, 15 years or 18 years. This would guarantee more turnover in the Supreme Court as well as the lower federal courts. Another mechanism would be to allow every president to appoint 2 justices to the Supreme Court with the 2 longest serving justices retiring.
Since the Constitution provides no set number of justices on the Court, expansion of the Court to 11 or 13 justices should also be considered. This would not be a political move but would reflect the increased workload of the justices as our nation has grown tremendously since the Constitution was written and the number of justices on the Court has varied in the past.
A fairer justice system is needed. Whether the Democrats and Republican politicians can agree on the changes that are necessary in another matter,
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Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020