Ms. Miers is 60 years old and nearing the retirement age for many Americans. That’s one fact that can’t be gotten around. Nature’s term limits will apply here. Maybe being a senior citizen is a plus in this case.

Perhaps not a strict term limit, but a reconfirmation by the Senate after x number of years would be better. I’d hate to flush out the good with the bad. The Senate can review all of the positions taken on the cases that were tried and decide whether the Justice has been faithfully executing the Constitution as promised in the swearing in.

Term-limits on the SCOTUS?? Silly, dangerous and without a shred of logical support (though obviously much emotional support). Look, the SCOTUS serves a moderating function — even if the House, Senate, and White House are held by a single ideology, the SCOTUS is there to act as a counterweight. Checks & balances, remember those? Term-limits would allow potentially radical court packing. Nobody should have to explain this, since anyone who’s had even the most basic civics course should know why this is such a monumentally bad idea. I’m more than a little surprised that people who desire judges of originalist or strict constructionist philosophy would want to so radically re-write the Constitution.

- Eric.

I don’t think it’s as radical as all that. When the Constitution was written, hardly anyone lived as long as Ben Franklin did. Hardly anyone lived as long as William Rehnquist did. To be honest I haven’t done the homework yet, but I’d suspect that there weren’t as many geriatrics on the SCOTUS who had served three and four decades back in the early days. And as we get better and better at keeping the body alive, we’re going to see justices serving for very long periods of time. Given the way medical tech is going, John Roberts could still be the Chief 50 years from now. That is a long, long time to serve in a position from which you can’t be fired and which gives you a very comfortable life far beyond that which the average American enjoys.

There are many reforms that wouldn’t require a constitutional amendment — for example, the Supreme Court didn’t set its own agenda until fairly recently (Congress used to pick which cases it would hear). Congress has a LOT of power to configure how the Court behaves — the general tendancy in the last 70 years or so has been to brush more and more responsibility towards the SC; in some cases that’s very obviously bad, and in some cases it’s obviously lazy. Of course, the laziness is nothing new — legislatures have always passed vague bills that had to be clarified in court.

That’s one reason I loved the idea of using Kelo to take Justice Souter’s own home and turn it into a hotel commemorating the decision. That is justice, the kind of justice the justices seldom if ever have to face themselves. They make or unmake laws, but really don’t have to live with what they’ve done.

Indeed.

When the Constitution was written, hardly anyone lived as long as Ben Franklin did. Hardly anyone lived as long as William Rehnquist did. To be honest I haven’t done the homework yet, but I’d suspect that there weren’t as many geriatrics on the SCOTUS who had served three and four decades back in the early days.

The average lifespan in the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries was about 50 years; ergo you need not do the research Bryan :)

I must admit though that I am not sure a term limit idea would be best though. Jimbo’s idea of terms as in they serve for X number of years (say 15) and then have to be reconfirmed to serve another term (say 10 years) seems like a good starting approach to this. Furthermore, the idea if another nominating process after a ten year term to have justices explain themselves on certain rulings is not a bad idea…could you see Souter being up for renomination and having to answer questions about a decision such as Kelo?

There is also something I proposed last year with regards to an effective way of “checking” the Supreme Court which is also worth considering:

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[T]he judiciary cannot invent law but instead must interpret it. Alexander Hamilton, my closest mirror among the Framers,[…] declared that:

There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid. [Federalist Papers #78]

This same principle logically applies to the Supreme Court as well. It would seem to me that the legislature would have the authority as you note to declare a certain judgment by the Supreme Court that so obviously controverted the Constitution as understood by the Framers by a kind of decree akin to a church tribunal declaration of nullity of a marriage. It would essentially be a declaration that the decision so outlined was null and void. And it bears noting that as the judiciary requires the executive branch to enforce its decrees, that a declaration of nullity as I outlined which passed both houses of the legislature and was signed by the President would effectively put a check on the Supreme Court..[LINK]

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I also mentioned later in that thread the possibility of impeaching some court justices…another way of putting a check on the Court’s justices. If memory serves, that is one of the checks that the legislature has over the judiciary and executive branches much as the executive by appointment has a check on the legislative branch for that reason and also via the power of enforcement of the laws over the judiciary. The judiciary’s authority to interpret law is supposed to serve as a check on the legislative and executive branches -both of which are involved in the passing of laws.

Etc. etc. etc.