[ Dems Reintroduce Bill to Impose Supreme Court Term Limits ]
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CESSPOOL OF CORRUPTION  
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Julia Conley
June 30, 2023
Common Dreams
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_ Dems Reintroduce Bill to Impose Supreme Court Term Limits _

Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court pose for their official photo in
Washington, D.C. on October 7, 2022. , Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty
Images

 

Condemning the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court as
corrupt and "heavily politicized," U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna
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reintroduced legislation to impose term limits for the nine justices
in order to "restore judicial independence."

Hours after the court ruled that businesses can refuse services
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people and struck down
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President Joe Biden's student loan debt relief program, Khanna
(D-Calif.) said that the framers of the Constitution established
lifetime appointments for justices on the nation's highest court in
order "to ensure impartiality," but recent rulings by the six
right-wing members of the panel's supermajority have not held up that
standard.

"The Supreme Court's decision to block student debt
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hardworking Americans at risk of default and will be a disaster for
our economy," said
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Rep. Ro Khanna. "Our Founding Fathers intended for lifetime
appointments to ensure impartiality. The decision today demonstrates
how justices have become partisan and out of step with the American
public. I'm proud to reintroduce the Supreme Court Term Limits and
Regular Appointments Act to implement term limits to rebalance the
court and stop extreme partisanship."

The legislation would create an 18-year term limit for justices
appointed after the law was enacted. Justices would be permitted to
serve on lower courts after their term was up.

Beyer (D-Va.) said the time has come to impose term limits following
numerous partisan decisions by the Supreme Court, including its
overturning of _Roe v. Wade
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last year, and revelations about undisclosed financial ties that
right-wing Justices Clarence Thomas
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Samuel Alito
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Neil Gorsuch
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had to Republican megadonors and operatives who have had business
before the court.

"For many Americans, the Supreme Court is a distant, secretive,
unelected body that can make drastic changes in their lives without
any accountability," said Beyer. "Recent partisan decisions by the
Supreme Court that destroyed historic protections for reproductive
rights, voting rights, and more have undermined public trust in the
Court—even as inappropriate financial relationships between justices
and conservative donors raised new questions about its integrity."

Currently, said Rep. Rashida Tlaib
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extremist, unelected activists" are doing "the bidding of billionaire
Republican donors from the bench."

"This illegitimate Supreme Court has become a cesspool of corruption
and is in urgent need of reform," she said. "It's time to end lifetime
appointments to the Supreme Court."

A poll by Marist College in April found
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that 68% of Americans back term limits for Supreme Court justices
while just 37% of respondents said they had confidence in the high
court.

The judicial watchdog group Fix the Court endorsed Khanna and Beyer's
proposal, noting
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the nation's founding until 1970, Supreme Court justices served 15
years on average.

"That number has nearly doubled in the last few decades, as the power
the court has abrogated to itself has also increased exponentially,"
said
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the group.

The current system has allowed Supreme Court justices to "possess
unchecked power for life," said
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Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court. "Luckily, there's a
popular, apolitical way to fix this: by requiring future justices to
take 'senior status' after 18 years, at which point they'd fill in at
SCOTUS when needed, rotate down to a lower court, or retire."

"This idea forms the basis of Rep. Khanna's bill," he said, "and I'm
pleased to support his work to establish fundamental guardrails for
the most powerful, least accountable part of our government."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely.

Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
 

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