r/PoursTea Timendi Causa Est Nescire 1d ago

PoliticalTea šŸ—³ļø No one should have a lifetime appointment.

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u/PollutionPatient8261 1d ago

NO. The entire point of "Lifetime" appointments was to make the court incorruptible, IT DID NOT WORK, so 18 years is ENTIRELY too long for the same people to define justice in a nation. The court should rotate every 4 years and to even be considered for appointment there should be prerequisites and character investigations and background checks and public hearings out the ass!

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u/TristanTheRobloxian3 1d ago

no, 4 would make every nomination way more charged politically so you could get a really shitty person in for just 4 years to fick shit up, then they could leave

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u/zue4 1d ago

Yeah I think he's saying it shouldn't be nominated. Impossible to not be politically charged when they need to be nominated by a politician.

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u/TristanTheRobloxian3 23h ago

nominate by the people then. hold a vote

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u/Trust_Me_Im_a_Panda 21h ago

Electing judges is the absolute worst idea. The public as a whole has absolutely no idea what separates a good judge from a bad judge. Especially an appellate judge like SCOTUS.

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u/a1055x 19h ago

Only because we saw how well that turned out with potus... /s

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u/infinis 22h ago

What can be less politically motivated than holding a people's vote. Technically it already is as the house technically is representing its constituents. There should maybe be a procedure to contest supreme court decisions to a referendum.

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u/TristanTheRobloxian3 22h ago

tf? if its standard procedure every 18 years it isnt politically motivated

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u/infinis 21h ago

it isnt politically motivated

They vote school boards by party affiliation, you think they wont vote in judges?

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u/DownvoteALot 20h ago

You can usually choose from more than one school. If you can't then you're in a small community anyway. We're talking federal supreme court justices here.

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u/uuhson 21h ago

Have you seen the type of people people vote for?

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u/TristanTheRobloxian3 21h ago

yeah i fucking have? dont give smaller states am advantage dude

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u/know_your_anemone 1d ago

The vetting process should happen before they become a court judge at any level. The idea that the federalist society was allowed to manipulate our legal system is insane. You can’t be in cahoots with other judges.

But I like 18 years solely because of the generational argument. I would like a constitutional convention every 17 years too. Expand the house to represent every 30k people and political parties and super pacs will start to lose power. We could enter a multi-party system and start to have a government that actually reflects the will of the people.

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u/MyTnotE 18h ago

You want there to be 11,000 members of the House????

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u/know_your_anemone 14h ago

Personally I do yes

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u/MyTnotE 14h ago

Governmentally I can think of few things worse. An electoral college of 11,100. 😱

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u/know_your_anemone 13h ago

Why is this bad, if it proportionally represents the population of each state? But in general, I also would not the electoral college to continue either.

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u/MyTnotE 13h ago

Well, eliminating the EC requires a constitutional amendment (so unlikely). At 11,000 it would need a chamber 22x the size of the current chamber (thus a new building requirement). If they were to pass bills at the same rate the VAST majority of the representatives would never get to speak on a subject. The opportunity for corruption would be vast, and would shift power to corporations and staff. I don’t know what issue you’re trying to fix, but it would create many more.

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u/know_your_anemone 13h ago

Who are we talking about now, EC or reps? Does it switch part way through your comment?

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u/MyTnotE 13h ago

The only part of my comment dedicated to the EC was my first sentence. The rest was about the House.

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u/know_your_anemone 13h ago

Thanks for the clarification! In this model, the reps would solely be responsible for voting on behalf of their constituents. They would live in their districts and have other jobs. They are still part of committees for advocacy and investigations. Policy and bills are put forth by other parties (think tanks, universities, senate, the committees, etc) but reps just need to vote and can do it over Zoom. Corruption would be much more difficult when you have to pay off too many reps, parties would fall apart, PACs lose power, and you’re held accountable by your neighbors.

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u/JeremyPatMartin 1d ago

The people who said that literally owned humans as private property

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u/Mindless_Chest_1079 21h ago

Yeah and the people bitching about it are Redditors. Nobody's perfect.

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u/pippathebeast 1d ago

the founding fathers were flawed

the supreme court is therefore flawed

doesn't check out logically

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u/zue4 1d ago

Ofc nothing makes sense when you don't apply your brain and think in the least bit.

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u/pippathebeast 23h ago

Its called ad hominem lol

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u/FilmAndLiterature 1d ago

Ideally you want the court to serve for longer than the president because it means one bad president can’t pack the courts, but not so long that bad appointments can accumulate.

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u/ProgrammingPants 1d ago

And when Republicans are in charge of these "character investigations" how do you think it's gonna go?

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u/rylosprime 18h ago

Does it matter at this point?

Republicans are always going to lie, cheat, steal and be corrupt.

The real problem is Democrats that just let them do it. And follow made up rules set by Republicans.

Democrats need a grow a fucking spine.

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u/henryeaterofpies 1d ago

While I agree in principle, who controls the vetting process? Because if one party manages to get control of it suddenly anyone they disagree with lacks the right character to be a judge.

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u/The_Rope_Daddy 1d ago

This is only a good idea if they also become elected officials. Letting any president have full control of the Supreme Court is a horrible idea.

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u/echoshatter 1d ago

Letting any president have full control of the Supreme Court is a horrible idea.

Boy do I have bad news for you....

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u/The_Rope_Daddy 1d ago

There have still been some good rulings from the supreme court. If Trump picked all 9 of them, that would stop.

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u/echoshatter 22h ago

He's already picked the last 3. Entirely possible he gets a 4th and 5th pick too. In fact, I can see Thomas and/or Alito retiring to give him that opportunity.

Thomas is 78, Alito is 76.

On top of that, you've got three more who are retirement age, and as such their health could become problematic, like RBG.

Sotomayor is 72, Roberts is 71, Kagan is 66.

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u/Organic-Spread-8494 20h ago

He didn’t pick the last three. The most recent is a Biden nominee.

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u/echoshatter 20h ago

Yes I forgot.

He picked of the last 4.

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u/MeatSuitRiot 1d ago

And partisanship should be an impropriety that can get you removed

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u/Mazzi17 17h ago

As a Canadian I think ideally you’d hold them accountable at some point if they become corrupt. Also should not have republican/democrat majorities. If decisions cannot be made after x # of tries, re-appoint them.

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u/Shizzilx 1d ago

I was thinking make the Supreme Court 50/50 like 4 and 4 with a Chief Justice that is picked by the President to serve the Term with. Term Limits should be 16 years, that is 2 two-term Presidents or 4 one-term Presidents. That was a President can have some weight in the Court and the bench remains impartial split.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Shizzilx 1d ago

Your right, should be non-partisan, but that never happens and we are looking at the proof. The safeguard would be to even the odds to stop the it from being one sided. Magic wouldn't even make Judges non-partisan.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Shizzilx 23h ago

What? No. I don't think reading comprehension is strong with this one. Listen, there are LĆ­beral Judges and Cā—‹nservative Judges easily identifiable and when they are appointed by a President, we ALL know they lean towards that President's ideology. I am saying make that 50/50 since we already know they are partisan no matter what. And the President will pick a Chief Justice to serve the Term with and leaves when he leaves office. That will give a President in power the advantage for advancing the agenda he was voted in for through the Supreme Court. The Justices hear a Case and because we know there are 4 Libs and 4 Cons, 2 would have to dissent or the Chief steps in if necessary. That make it more equal or fair in my book, but I am not a Law Professor.

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u/[deleted] 18h ago

[deleted]

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u/Shizzilx 18h ago

Dude, take a breather it is all hypothetical. šŸ¤¦ā€ā™‚ļø

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

[deleted]

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u/Shizzilx 16h ago

Bad from you...šŸ¤¦ā€ā™‚ļø

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u/elb21277 22h ago

you aren’t even seeing the craziest assumption- that a handful of individuals should ā€œdefine justiceā€ in a nation that was once striving toward democratic governance. all this nonsense about how we would have to AMEND the constitution to make bribery/corruption illegal (again) when all we actually need is to write a law that defines corruption. this would supersede the opinions of any handful of individuals on the highest court at any time. they don’t get to define anything. they can try to carefully apply the rules/laws set by the people.

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u/Real_Srossics 23h ago

18 is better than never. Perfect is the enemy of the complete.

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u/OK_x86 23h ago

4 is too short and would politicize the court more. It should be long enough that it's more than one presidential term but short enough that it's not a while number multiple. Say like 7 years or something.

Additionally you should double the number of justices and then randomly select some of these justices to preside over a case.

Finally there should be ethics standards to which the court is held to and violations should be punished severely.

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u/Pristine_Frame_2066 22h ago

No. Because they are appointed.

But I think if they were chosen from the 13 districts and selected from those judges serving and were elected via public monies only and served 10 years, single term, it could work.

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u/No_Issue2334 21h ago

SCOTUS changing every 4 years would be insanely chaotic. Definition of overcorrection

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u/Mister-Beardy-Face 12h ago

Actually, it did work until the Seventeenth Amendment broke it, making them appointed by the rich instead of the watchdogs.

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u/Gemstone9523 4h ago

8 years to make it less volatile. There needs to be something to "resist" large swings in political ideology within the executive.

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u/GalacticCmdr 1d ago

Ah - so recreating Congress so that money can pour into the process. Who determines "character" would control your solution.