Legal Affairs, an online magazine with a Debate Club feature, has invited yours truly to participate in a January debate on the question of whether the Constitution should be amended to eliminate life tenure for U.S. Supreme Court justices.
Here's a timely column on the subject by Edward J. Lazaurs, in Findlaw, in which he suggests 18-year terms for each justice, staggered every two years so that each president gets two appointments. Lazarus wrote an informative book, Closed Chambers, too informative, some thought, on the Court, as the result of his clerking there.
Staggered 18-year limits would promote continuing rejuvenation of the Court, Lazarus says.
It might also promote accountability of the president in SC appointments to the electorate, since as candidate s/he might feel increased pressure to name Court choices, just as he's charged with naming a VP choice.
Will this lower the political stakes?
More likely it will simply change the timing and location of the firestorm, and probably, double it, ratcheting up the intensity of the contest by focusing attention on each candidacy not once but twice, or more.
Can you imagine two Clarence Thomas hearings in quick succession?
That would really benefit the country.
Firestorm One would occur during the presidential campaign when the candidate names names.
This will add to or detract from perhaps larger issues there, such as war and peace. And likely cause the defeat of the candidate when his proposed nominee turns out to be a human being instead of a god.
We prefer gods to humans in our pedestal public offices.
So, if the nominee smoked the dope or got the girl pregnant, in the springtime of his youth, or last week, forget war and peace, it's morality that really counts in this country, which is why we need a Taliban of our own, not that we don't have one, or two.
Moral impurity yields political unacceptability.
Firestorm Two occurs during hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC), over confirmation, since the Senate must advise and consent, when the usual cultural wars and filibuster threats may occur all over again.
Firestorm Three occurs when the full Senate votes.
Firestorm Four occurs when the newly sworn in justice is invited to accept an honorary degree from his alma mater and half the audience walks out of the graduation ceremony.
Lazarus lists the pros and cons but finds that he's got himself a hung jury on the inside of his own head on the proposal.
Mistrial!