Recent polling released by NBC News shows that only 22% of Americans have confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court. In the wake of that growing unpopularity, a new proposal in Congress would amend the Constitution to impose 18-year term limits on Supreme Court justices. Democratic Rep. Johnny Olszewski of Maryland joins "The Takeout" to discuss.
Originally, the Supreme Court was just supposed to be the highest court. The Founding Fathers wanted those positions to be apolitical, and they thought a good way of doing that would be making the position last a lifetime. I.e., if you dont have to worry about getting re-elected, your decisions will be more pure.
Things changed due to Marbury vs. Madison, where the court gave itself the power of judicial review, essentially the power to change laws, which is where they became much more powerful. Nowadays, people are taught that there are 3 branches of government with checks and balances over each other, which is true, but it was not originally that way until Marbury vs. Madison.
The problem with literally any government form, though, is that there is never any immunity to bad actors. Term limits dont necessarily solve anything, but if the justices are acting like any other politician anyway, we might as well treat them that way.
I would argue the best solution is ironclad ethics rules that are grounds for impeachment. E.g., if you are clearly owned by a billionaire, you should be impeached. That comes back around to the “no safety from bad actors”-problem, though, when congress refuses to do the “right” thing.
Forbid Supreme Court justices from ever owning anything ever again after they become justices. Establish a community for Supreme Court justices that has nice houses, amenities, everything that they could reasonably want, and then require that they and their immediate families live in the Supreme Court compound. Anyone found violating this oath is stripped of all benefits and exiled to Scottsdale Arizona to live out the remainder of their miserable lives.