#Term limits

[triple-tree-ranch]

Every single one

[justinspoliticalcorner]

President Biden set to announce support for major Supreme Court reforms

Tyler Pager and Michael Scherer at WaPo:

President Biden is finalizing plans to endorse major changes to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks, including proposals for legislation to establish term limits for the justices and an enforceable ethics code, according to two people briefed on the plans.

He is also weighing whether to call for a constitutional amendment to eliminate broad immunity for presidents and other constitutional officeholders, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The announcement would mark a major shift for Biden, a former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has long resisted calls to make substantive changes to the high court. The potential changes come in response to growing outrage among his supporters about recent ethics scandals surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas and decisions by the new court majority that have changed legal precedent on issues including abortion and federal regulatory powers. Biden previewed the shift in a Zoom call Saturday with the Congressional Progressive Caucus. [...]

Term limits and an ethics code would be subject to congressional approval, which would face long odds in the Republican-controlled House and a slim Democratic majority in the Senate. Under current rules, passage in the Senate would require 60 votes. A constitutional amendment requires even more hurdles, including two-thirds support of both chambers, or by a convention of two-thirds of the states, and then approval by three-fourths of state legislatures. The details of Biden’s considered policies have not been disclosed. A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

[...] Eight Democratic senators have co-sponsored a bill that would establish 18-year terms for Supreme Court justices, with a new justice appointed every two years. The nine most recently appointed justices would sit for appellate jurisdiction cases, while others would be able to hear original jurisdiction cases or to step in as a substitute if one of the most recent nine is conflicted or cannot hear a case for another reason.

Good News! President Joe Biden set to endorse major reforms to SCOTUS, such as term limits and an ethics code with actual teeth.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

By Peter Rosenstein

I will surely be challenged for these views, not the least being called ageist. But as someone older myself, I am comfortable with that. It is not that I think older people are not fully capable of functioning at a very high level; they are. I just believe we must let the next generations, who will be living much longer with the results of what government does, have more of a role in determining what that is.

Based on what we have seen of this Supreme Court, its willingness to overturn decades of precedent, the time has come to expand the court for a rational balance. In addition, we should set 24-year term limits for justices, or retirement at 80, whichever comes first. Changing the number of people on the court is not a new idea. The number of persons on the Supreme Court has been changed six times since our country was founded. The U.S. Constitution is silent about how many justices should sit on the Supreme Court.

“After the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination, Congress clashed with Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, who was rapidly undoing the ‘Radical Republicans’ plan for Reconstruction. To limit Johnson’s power, Congress passed legislation in 1866 that cut the number of Supreme Court justices back to seven, all but assuring that Johnson wouldn’t have the opportunity to fill a vacant seat. The last time Congress changed the number of Supreme Court justices was in 1869, again to meet a political end. Ulysses S. Grant was elected president in 1868 with the backing of congressional Republicans who hated Johnson. As a gift to Grant, Congress increased the number of justices from seven back to nine, and Grant gamely used those picks.”

On today’s Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has now served 32 years, and Roberts and Alito, 19 years each. Then there was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was 87, and had served 27 years, when she died, clinging to her seat when it was known how ill she was.

It is only recently I have come to this conclusion regarding the Supreme Court, and on term and age limits for the Congress. We are seeing too many older men, and women, cling to power. They may still have the mental acuity to perform their jobs, but entire generations aren’t serving because they refuse to leave. There is incredible power in incumbency, and we are seeing it abused.

We are asking young people to vote for candidates old enough to be their grandparents, or great-grandparents. Some say they should revolt and change that. But the fact is, so much money is now in the game, the unlimited amount people can spend on their own campaigns, and collect from others, makes that nearly impossible. It’s rare to be able to fight incumbency and wealth.

Yes, it can happen, as in the case of Maryland Congressman David Trone (D-Md.), who is 68, and tried to buy a United States Senate seat in Maryland with $60 million of his own money. He lost his primary to Angela Alsobrooks, who is 53, whose campaign had less than a tenth of that. But she was a known entity, and elected official, in her own right.

Today, in the 100-member United States Senate, there is one senator over 90, four over 80, and another 10 over 70. I propose we set a limit of four terms, or 24 years, and mandatory retirement at 80. In the House of Representatives, which now has 11 members over 80, and 62 over 70, I would recommend a 12-term limit, or 24 years, and mandatory retirement at 80.

I have had conversations with many young people, and listened to their frustrations with their ability to move forward in politics. Many see the world differently than I do, and my belief is they are entitled to be making the decisions that will impact their lives, and not have the older generations continue to do so. I think being in office for 24 years is enough time to make a difference, and to accomplish what you wanted to do when you ran for office. And if you couldn’t do it, it is time to allow the next generations to try.

The desire to cling to power is natural. For many, the fear of retirement, and not knowing what they will do with their lives, is scary. I think one must plan for that, even politicians. They need to accept they can make a difference, even if not in office, if they really want to.

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

👏

[davidaugust]

“I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is Above the Law Amendment.”

“I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court.”

“I’m calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court.”

Yes please.

Gift link to President Biden’s proposal: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/29/joe-biden-reform-supreme-court-presidential-immunity-plan-announcement/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzIyMjI1NjAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzIzNjA3OTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3MjIyMjU2MDAsImp0aSI6IjI5ODkwY2VjLTYwZTItNDZmZi1hOWZkLWQwOTJjZmI5MGNjMSIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9vcGluaW9ucy8yMDI0LzA3LzI5L2pvZS1iaWRlbi1yZWZvcm0tc3VwcmVtZS1jb3VydC1wcmVzaWRlbnRpYWwtaW1tdW5pdHktcGxhbi1hbm5vdW5jZW1lbnQvIn0.ZjQ4R9u8pwlIKd0l230VD0f20mb0V140Kw3gTFopyfM

[mostlysignssomeportents]

What Americans want

Tomorrow (Oct 19), I'm in Charleston, WV to give the 41st annual McCreight Lecture in the Humanities. And on Friday (Oct 20), I'm at Charleston's Taylor Books from 12h-14h.

If you aspire to be a Very Serious Person (and whomst amongst us doesn't?) then you know why we can't have nice things. The American people won't stand for court packing, Congressional term limits, the abolition of the Electoral College, or campaign finance limits. Politics is the art of the possible, and these just aren't possible.

Friends, you've been lied to.

The latest Pew Research mega-report investigates Americans' attitudes towards politics, and honestly, the title says it all: "Americans’ Dismal Views of the Nation’s Politics":

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/americans-dismal-views-of-the-nations-politics/

The American people hate Congress. They hate the parties. They hate the president. They hate the 2024 presidential candidates. They loathe the Supreme Court. Approval for America's bedrock institutions are at historic lows. Disapprovals are at historic highs.

The report's subtitle speaks volumes: "65% say they always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics." Who can blame them? After all: "63% express not too much or no confidence at all in the future of the U.S. political system."

"Just 4% of U.S. adults say the political system is working extremely or very well": that is to say, there are more Americans who think Elvis is alive than who think US politics are working well.

There are differences, of course. Young people have less hope than older people. Republicans are more reactionary than Democrats. Racialized people trust institutions less than white people.

But there are also broad, bipartisan, cross-demographic, intergenerational agreements, and these may surprise you:

Take Congressional term-limits. 87% of US adults support these. Only 12% oppose them.

Everyone knows American gerontocracy is a problem. I mean, for one thing, it's destabilizing. There's a significant chance that neither of the presumptive US presidential candidates will be alive on inauguration day:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/01/designated-survivors/

But beyond the inexorable logic of actuarial science, there's the problem that our Congress of septuagenarians have served for decades, and are palpably out-of-touch with their constituents' lives. And those constituents know it, which is why 79% of Americans favor age limits for elected officials and Supreme Court justices:

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/how-americans-view-proposals-to-change-the-political-system/

Not all of this bipartisan agreement is positive. 76% of Americans have been duped into favoring a voter ID requirement to solve the nonexistent problem of voter fraud by imposing a racialized, wealth-based poll-tax. But even here, there's a silver lining: 62% of American support automatically registering every eligible voter.

Threats to pack the Supreme Court have a long and honorable tradition in this country. It's how Lincoln got his antislavery agenda, and how FDR got the New Deal:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/25/consequentialism/#dotards-in-robes

The majority of Americans don't want to pack the court…yet. The race is currently neck-and-neck – 51% opposed, 46% in favor, and with approval for the Supreme Court at lows not seen since the 2400 baud era, court-packing is an idea with serious momentum:

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/21/favorable-views-of-supreme-court-fall-to-historic-low/

66% of Democrats want the court packed. 58% of under 30s – of every affiliation – favor the proposal.

And two thirds (65%) of Americans want to abolish the Electoral College and award the presidency to the candidate with the most votes. That includes nearly half (47%) of Republicans, and two thirds of independents.

Americans believe – correctly – that their elected representatives are more beholden to monied interests than to a sense of duty towards their constituents. Or, as a pair of political scientists put it in their widely cited 2014 paper:

Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

So yeah, no surprise that 70% of Americans believe that voters have too little influence over their elected lawmakers. 83% of Republicans say big campaign donors call the shots. 80% of Democrats agree.

Which is why 72% of Americans want to limit political spending (76% for Democrats, 71% for Republicans). The majority of Americans – 58% – believe that it is possible to get money out of politics with well-crafted laws.

Americans truly do have a "dismal view of the nation's politics," and who can blame them? But if you "feel exhausted thinking about the nation's politics," consider this – the majority of Americans, including Republicans, want to:

abolish the electoral college;

impose campaign spending limits;

put term limits on elected officials and Supreme Court justices;

put age limits on elected officials and Supreme Court justices; and

automatically register every eligible American to vote.

What's more, packing the Supreme Court is a coin-toss, and it's growing more popular day by day.

Which is all to say, yes, things are really screwed up, but everyone knows it and everyone agrees on the commonsense measures that would fix it.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/18/the-people-no/#tell-ya-what-i-want-what-i-really-really-want

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[ahamay79]

[ridenwithbiden]

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is preparing to endorse significant proposals to reform the Supreme Court and notified some members of Congress about his intentions last weekend, three sources familiar with the plans said Tuesday.

The proposals under serious consideration include legislation to establish term limits for justices and establishing an updated code of ethics that would be binding and enforceable, a source said. The policies, which haven't been finalized, may be rolled out in the coming weeks, which would be a new approach for a president who has long been skeptical of restructuring the Supreme Court.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

Biden told lawmakers in the Congressional Progressive Caucus during a virtual meeting Saturday that he had been consulting constitutional scholars on the matter for more than a month, according to a person familiar with the discussion.

“I’m going to need your help to and advice on how we should be doing what I’m going to be doing there. Want to make sure we have a closer working relationship, because we’re in this together,” Biden told the lawmakers, though he didn’t get into specific policy substance, the source said.

The Washington Post first reported Biden’s plans.

Two other sources told NBC News that Biden told the lawmakers he will come out for big reforms, without giving them details, but that members on the call understood him to be referring to term limits and ethics rules. The call took place Saturday before the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.

“Look, it’s not, it’s not hyperbole to suggest Trump is literally an existential threat, an existential threat to the very constitution of democracy we, we say we care about. And I mean if this guy wins, he’s not, and now, especially with that Supreme Court giving him the kind of breadth of — I don’t need to get into the Supreme Court right now — anyway, but I need your help,” Biden said.

Changing the structure of the Supreme Court would require Congress to make a new law. That's extremely unlikely while Republicans control the House, as the party is pleased with the 6-3 conservative majority it has built on the high court.

But the proposals could become a useful messaging device for Biden on the campaign trail. And if Democrats sweep the election, they may have a fighting chance of passing. Democrats have rallied voters against the Supreme Court, citing unpopular rulings like the elimination of federal abortion rights and a spate of recent reports detailing apparent ethical lapses among some of the justices.

Last month, Senate Democrats sought to pass Supreme Court ethics legislation but ran into Republican opposition. In the House, Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Don Beyer, D-Va., have lintroduced legislation that would impose 18-year term limits for future justices, ultimately creating vacancies to fill during every four-year presidential term and preventing retirements for partisan reasons.

Khanna praised Biden for warming up to the idea, noting that he first introduced term limits legislation in 2020.

“Since then, we have been advocating for the president to champion this reform," Khanna told NBC News on Tuesday. "It is a big step for him to now call for commonsense term limits for the court and a judicial code of ethics.”

[jokingluna]

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Another Seizure: Mitch McConnell freezes AGAIN while answering questions

[racefortheironthrone]

Are you in favour of term limits for members of Congress? Like the way that say Michigan has stricter rules on how long you can be in. Or maybe something like they can't serve more than two consecutive terms, but could serve again after another term.

I am against term limits for pretty much all elected offices; I consider it to be the worst of the "good government" reforms, because its actual impact is so directly counter-productive to its intended outcome. After spending eight years in California politics at a time when term limits dominated state politics, I can say with some confidence that term limits had a poisonous and corrosive effect on both the political culture of the state and the policymaking process.

The logic behind term limits is that it is supposed to discourage the formation of a professional class of politicians and encourage the ideal of the disinterested citizen representative who serves his time in government and then goes home, a la Cincinnatus. This did not happen, because term limits doesn't actually change the electoral process to make it easier for amateurs to win elections, nor is it the case that there's a finite pool of professional or would-be professional politicians who will be disbarred from the political process.

Instead, term limits encouraged politicians to spend even less of their time focusing on the business of government and more time raising money and planning their re-relection, because now they had to develop a complicated hop-scotching career path that went from assembly to senate and then to some statewide office and then back down to county supervisor or something else minor, and so on.

Moreover, because the number of elected positions tends to dwindle as you move up the political ladder, this encouraged a vicious culture of musical chairs, where politicians constantly schemed to stab other politicians in the back to clear the field for their own campaigns. This led to some truly ugly primaries and a general low level of trust between politicians that made cooperation on legislation even more difficult.

Finally, let's talk public policy. Contrary to "good government" ideology, in reality being a legislator or an executive or a judicial officer is a real specialized profession that people have to develop expertise (both in the legislative or executive process, and the details of a certain subset of public policies that the politician cares about) over time. Term limits directly attack that development of expertise - if all you have is two terms and generally freshmen politicians spend their first terms with no clue as to what they're doing, you're never going to learn to be very good at your job, and you don't have much of an incentive to get good at your job because you're going to be kicked out permanently anyway. But you know who has infinite amounts of time to learn to get good at the political process and the details of public policy? Lobbyists for wealthy corporations. Very quickly, the lobbyists become the source of expertise that legislators turn to to help them write legislation and tell them how to vote, because they're the only ones who know what they're doing. Moreover, term limits massively encourage revolving door politics, because when everyone's running to keep ahead of the term limit axe, a permanent job that pays much better than legislative office and still lets you stay in politics sounds really good.

[mastermark1960]

I am a proud American that is shocked by the stupidity of both the left and right. The left for having no clue about how money works and the right for not stopping the insanity. Abraham Lincoln once said a house divided against itself can not stand. Such true words were never spoken. Our great nation is being eaten alive by the ignorance of the left. Contrary to how they think deficit spending needs to stop NOW. The way to stop this is not with ever higher taxes but through sound fiscal policies, for corporations to bring our jobs home, train welfare recipients how to work and have pride in their accomplishments. Wipe out the nanny state so every American, no matter their race, creed, color, or religion, is proud of their country and themselves. Corporate greed needs to end. Personal greed needs to end. We all need to work together to repair our great country ASAP. Please read the website main street economics. Get educated on how we are spending ourselves out of a country. I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I am a fiscal conservative. We are currently borrowing money to service the debt and this is not sustainable. If you hate the United States of America please leave. We don't need or want you among us. There is no room for hate of any kind in my great country. Thank you for reading my post. I hope everyone has a bright and prosperous future.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one. But the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on July 1 to grant presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do. The only limits will be those that are self-imposed by the person occupying the Oval Office. [...] On top of dangerous and extreme decisions that overturn settled legal precedents — including Roe v. Wade — the court is mired in a crisis of ethics. Scandals involving several justices have caused the public to question the court’s fairness and independence, which are essential to faithfully carrying out its mission of equal justice under the law. For example, undisclosed gifts to justices from individuals with interests in cases before the court, as well as conflicts of interest connected with Jan. 6 insurrectionists, raise legitimate questions about the court’s impartiality. [...] First, I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is Above the Law Amendment. It would make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office. I share our Founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute. We are a nation of laws — not of kings or dictators. Second, we have had term limits for presidents for nearly 75 years. We should have the same for Supreme Court justices. The United States is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court. Term limits would help ensure that the court’s membership changes with some regularity. That would make timing for court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary. It would reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come. I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court. Third, I’m calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court. This is common sense. The court’s current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced. Justices should be required to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. Every other federal judge is bound by an enforceable code of conduct, and there is no reason for the Supreme Court to be exempt. All three of these reforms are supported by a majority of Americans— as well as conservative and liberal constitutional scholars. And I want to thank the bipartisan Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States for its insightful analysis, which informed some of these proposals.

President Joe Biden for The Washington Post on Supreme Court reforms (07.29.2024).

President Joe Biden wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post this morning about his plan to reform the Supreme Court. His plans to fix the nation’s highest court include 3 key items:

Term limits of 18 years.

Binding code of ethics.

Constitutional Amendment that states Presidents cannot have immunity for crimes committed while in office.

These plans are supported by the majority of Americans.

[personal-blog243]

It’s a long shot but let’s hope some of this gets passed!

[mrfree2go]

[deadpresidents]

Do you agree with the idea that one of the more politically astute things Biden could've done in early 2021 was push for an amendment that limited presidents (including himself) to a single term?

I ask this as someone who feels that a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024 is very much not in the national interest. Such an amendment would've guaranteed two different nominees next year, and more broadly, I think there are arguments for limiting presidents to just one term (second terms have been pretty awful in the modern era, if we consider Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and G.W. Bush).

Btw, I realize presidents don't have a formal role in the amendment process, but I think if Biden had gotten enough Dems behind it, there might have been enough support in Congress to send it to the states. In early 2021, the GOP would've almost been happy to have Trump term-limited, and ambitious Republicans like Scott, Cruz, and Rubio probably would've supported such an amendment.

That's an interesting question. From our perspective, I can totally understand the reasoning behind it, too. And that would have been a better time to attempt it for the reasons you pointed out.

However, I just think it's nearly impossible to amend the Constitution, especially in the political climate we've been living in for the past decade. It's also difficult to imagine any President actively seeking to impose further term limits on themselves. These are people who work practically the entire lives in order to get into that particular job, so it would require a superhuman act of selflessness to get them to advocate for changing the Constitution so that they only serve one term. We can't even get modern Presidents (or serious candidates for the Presidency) to voluntarily pledge to only serve a single term, so I just don't see any of them trying to change the Constitution to legally prohibit running for re-election. President Biden had been seeking the Presidency for at least 35 years, with three official campaigns for the job, before he finally was elected in 2020. I don't think there was ever a realistic chance of him voluntarily giving up a chance at a second term. And I wouldn't be so sure that ambitious legislators who have obviously been eyeing the Presidency for years would have supported a single term limit. You know how there are people who are opposed to raising taxes on the super wealthy because they are still holding out hope that they'll someday strike it rich? I'm guessing there would be a similar line of thinking and members of Congress with Presidential aspirations wouldn't want to support a single term limit just in case they eventually find themselves in the White House.

I've written about this before, but my personal opinion is actually in support of eliminating Presidential term limits altogether. As I've said in the past, the Founders did not explicitly place term limits on the President, and while most Presidents before FDR followed George Washington's tradition of serving two terms and retiring, term limits weren't imposed until after World War II. The Constitution was amended 21 times for over 150 years before Presidential term limits were finally instituted. And, even then, it was largely because Franklin D. Roosevelt won four straight Presidential elections. I question whether the Founders would see it as a proper balance of power to place term limits on the Executive Branch, but not on the Legislative or Judicial branches. So, my personal belief has been that there should either be term limits on the President, Congress, AND the Supreme Court, or there should be no limits at all. Of course, that might result in someone shitty, like Donald Trump, running for a third term, but it also provides options that voters otherwise wouldn't have. Imposing a two-term limit on Presidents may prohibit a terrible President from being elected a third time, but it also might prevent someone proven to be a good, responsible, popular leader from continuing in office.

Ultimately, the decision should be left to the voters, but I sure would feel better about 2024 if Barack Obama could be on the ballot again. We place limits on who can be candidates for what is arguably the most powerful and important job in the world, and then we complain because we don't like our choices. We prohibit the only people in the world who have actually DONE the job of President (and seemingly should have some understanding and experience on how to do that job) from being President for more than two four-year terms. Yet, nearly all of our Supreme Court Justices leave the bench by dying, and many of the most powerful legislators (in both parties) are alarmingly old and frail -- and probably running for re-election. Barack Obama has been term-limited from running for President since leaving office in 2017. Obama was 55 years old when he left office; he'll be 63 on the next Inauguration Day, in 2025 -- eight years after leaving office and sixteen years after his first inauguration. That's still younger than Ronald Reagan (69), George H.W. Bush (64), Donald Trump (70), and Joe Biden (78) were when they were first inaugurated as President!

So, if we're going to amend the Constitution regarding term limits, I say get rid of all of them or impose them on every branch of the federal government.