The Founding Fathers & The Supreme Court, Part II
Being a history addict I love this stuff!
More please.
Speaking of history I’m big into military history and I’ve not seen our resident expert in that area(Tanny.)
Anyone know where he’s been hiding lately?
I miss soaking in his knowledge.*looks concerned*Posted by Annoying Little Twerp
07/22/2005 at 09:26 PM
Yes, OCM, times have changed but does that mean that fundamental truths and designs need to change also. These men came up with a brilliant design that has worked well for hundreds of years. It has worked because it was simple and well-designed. You may fudge around the edges and make minor modifications but the basic foundation should remain untouchable until someone comes up with a better design. Just my humble two-cents.
Of course I’m humble, OCM. You oughta know that by now.
There are two critical points here:
(1) most judges never get appointed to the Supreme Court until they are at least in their 50’s, some even later. That means the longest they can serve is 25-30 years before death removes them from office. Hell, Strom Thurmond served three times that long in the Senate and Teddy Kennedy will probably come close to ol’ Strom’s record. (now there’s an excellent argument for term limits .... on Senators)
(2) setting term limits would only bring the process of selecting the most important judges in the land back into the political arena. Before long you’d have an unstable court which changes direction every few years when a judge is replaced. Do you really want to go through this nomination process every few years? I don’t. The one important thing SCOTUS provides is stability and resistance to sudden changes in policy and/or party dominance.
That is why the selection of a new justice is so critical. The effects are long-term.