Just days after ousting former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the top leadership position, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) signaled he’d be willing to raise the threshold for a future motion to vacate — but only if Republicans agree to vote on a number of political reforms.
I’m not familiar with a constitutional ban on term limits, and the idea has been floated by people at fairly high levels. Where do you think the restriction is, and do you think any limits could apply to new justices even if the currents are grandfathered in?
Article 3, Section 1:
Unlike for President, Senators, and Representatives, no term is given for Federal Judges, which includes the Supreme Court Justices. They “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.” Once a Federal Judge, always a Federal Judge.
Article 3, Section 2:
Because judicial review is inferred (not stated) in the Constitution, and because Congress has explicit permission to regulate the judiciary (including the Supreme Court), Congress can effectively do what they want.
This means that Congress can put a clause stating “this law is not subject to judicial review” and there is literally nothing SCOTUS can do about it. It’s a check on SCOTUS. Congress has full power over judicial review.
Congress has tried exercising this clause in the past (to force judicial review to require a 2/3 majority of justices), but it’s always died in the Senate.
That can limit their appellate jurisdiction. Congress can’t restrict the court’s original jurisdiction. A state could sue the federal government over this and as a case where a state is a party, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction.
But what’s the definition of “Office” in this context? The Office of the President, for example, is defined as a span of four years. President is the title and Office includes both title and time, as do many other political positions.
So what I’m saying is that there’s nothing there that says Congress cannot pass a law saying the Office of a Supreme Court Justice is defined as holding the position for six years.
Because the Constitution specifies term lengths for President, Senators, and Representatives, it is clear that the authors knew when those things needed to be specified. The absence of specifying a term length for Justices means that it is a life term; if the authors had intended there to be a term measured in years, one would have been mentioned.
While I am not a lawyer, I have read enough about intepreting the Constitution to know that that is the very longstanding way to interpret this, and that it is pretty universally accepted.
For the record, I’m playing advocatus diaboli here. I agree that your interpretation is the traditional one.
That said, it has not been challenged, as far as I know, and attributions of original intent (and by now even the application of previous rulings) are the subject of legal argumentation and opinion. My point was that the Constitution does not explicitly set a temporal component to the term of a federal justice, and it does not explicitly forbid one. This it would not take a constitutional amendment to set a term limit, but rather a finding that the law did not violate the constitution (which again would come down to an interpretation since it’s not explicitly set).