1. Regarding ending judicial finality, one of the main things that separates us from autocracies like the PRC is that control of the legislature doesn't determine control of constitutional interpretation. In the PRC, the highest court can be overturned by a simple majority in the People's Congress. This means that as long as the Communist Party is in power, the Communist Party determines the interpretation of the constitution that's supposed to bind their power.
Now, looking at it from a realist's lens, all tearing out judicial review would do is minimize the political battlefield to Congress. Justices are no longer independent jurists but high-level bureaucrats who can enforce the will of the party in control of the legislature, or not. It doesn't matter.
2. The phrase "term limits" immediately makes me nervous. A "good" justice (whatever that means) should absolutely serve a lifetime term because it really takes _that long_ to acquire such a comprehensive understanding of various bodies of law and their impacts on a society of hundreds of millions of Americans (not to mention the greater impact on the whole world) that there's no reason to limit the amount of expertise a jurist can acquire in that context.
I feel like one of our concerns is that "bad" justices aren't adequately held to account for their badness. Thomas had financial questions that would have led to a disciplinary hearing at the least for any other bar member. Kavanaugh had questions of perjury at the time of his hearing and now.
All of the options listed here aside from court packing require constitutional amendments to achieve. If we're able to modify the constitution, we should avoid giving authoritarian populist movements _more_ power and instead strengthen the actual rule of law as it pertains to public officials. Someone shouldn't have to be as blatantly and openly corrupt as Samuel Chase to be impeached, we should amend the constitution to set clear standards for what constitutes impeachable offenses. A president with a friendly senate shouldn't be able to commit crimes in broad public view, amending the constitution here would fix that.
All term limits would do is give people who already have flush political warchests more opportunity to entrench their agenda at every level of administration. All overturning judicial review would do is effectively remove all limits on Congress's separation from the Judiciary as well as the Executive and render the Bill of Rights worthless. And given that the limitations on governmental power are what lets the free world put massive amounts of trust in us (even as it criticizes our domestic affairs and "lack of culture"), the end of the American Century would follow shortly after.
A few problems with this take:
1. Regarding ending judicial finality, one of the main things that separates us from autocracies like the PRC is that control of the legislature doesn't determine control of constitutional interpretation. In the PRC, the highest court can be overturned by a simple majority in the People's Congress. This means that as long as the Communist Party is in power, the Communist Party determines the interpretation of the constitution that's supposed to bind their power.
Now, looking at it from a realist's lens, all tearing out judicial review would do is minimize the political battlefield to Congress. Justices are no longer independent jurists but high-level bureaucrats who can enforce the will of the party in control of the legislature, or not. It doesn't matter.
2. The phrase "term limits" immediately makes me nervous. A "good" justice (whatever that means) should absolutely serve a lifetime term because it really takes _that long_ to acquire such a comprehensive understanding of various bodies of law and their impacts on a society of hundreds of millions of Americans (not to mention the greater impact on the whole world) that there's no reason to limit the amount of expertise a jurist can acquire in that context.
I feel like one of our concerns is that "bad" justices aren't adequately held to account for their badness. Thomas had financial questions that would have led to a disciplinary hearing at the least for any other bar member. Kavanaugh had questions of perjury at the time of his hearing and now.
All of the options listed here aside from court packing require constitutional amendments to achieve. If we're able to modify the constitution, we should avoid giving authoritarian populist movements _more_ power and instead strengthen the actual rule of law as it pertains to public officials. Someone shouldn't have to be as blatantly and openly corrupt as Samuel Chase to be impeached, we should amend the constitution to set clear standards for what constitutes impeachable offenses. A president with a friendly senate shouldn't be able to commit crimes in broad public view, amending the constitution here would fix that.
All term limits would do is give people who already have flush political warchests more opportunity to entrench their agenda at every level of administration. All overturning judicial review would do is effectively remove all limits on Congress's separation from the Judiciary as well as the Executive and render the Bill of Rights worthless. And given that the limitations on governmental power are what lets the free world put massive amounts of trust in us (even as it criticizes our domestic affairs and "lack of culture"), the end of the American Century would follow shortly after.