Here's the thing though... Thomas and Alito aren't going willfully under a Democratic President, just will not happen.
That would throw the court from 6-3 Conservative back to 5-4 Liberal.
But even if that did happen, the next two oldest are Sotomayor and Roberts, one Liberal and one fairly reliable swing vote.
So we can't just maintain a Democratic president through Thomas an Alito, which is likely to be at least the next two Presidential terms (24-28, 28-32), but beyond that to possibly '36 or even '40.
She does have Type 1 Diabetes though, which unfortunately means an average mortality of 10 years earlier than someone without it. Of course, that's just an average.
We can argue actuarial tables all day, but the point is that replacing Sotomayor with a younger liberal justice has zero downside. It's as close to a free lunch as one can get in politics.
I mean, they do have the best health care you can get. Look at someone like Sandra Day O'Connor, lived to 93. Fortunately she stepped down in 2006 when she was 76.
While experience is clearly an important job qualification for a judge, at some point their experience is from a different era. At the beginning of her training the world was a very different place, but she now applies her experience from that era to cases today.
I don't mean to say her experience is entirely irrelevant, just that the old have to give way to the young if progress is to be made.
These guys should have age limits if not term limits. At the very least there should be a known point in time that they need to be replaced so that political games cannot be played with their appointments.
it is learning, not youth, that makes a person be not-living-in-the-past,
& there isn't any substitute for getting old-enough to understand systems-of-systems thinking, as some "grandmothers & grandfathers", as the Indigenous people call 'em, can.
Age isn't, of itself, sufficient to judge whether someone's competent to do the work they currently are doing.
If you replace one judge every year, that will give the judge nearly a decade of service. If somebody karks it, the other guy gets to stay another year.
Once you hit your 9 years… (or 10,) you’re done. Retirement it is. (Or maybe you get to teach at a law school or something.)
So, do you not think the principle of ensuring a justice doesn't have to worry about their next gig is valuable, or do you think youthfulness is just more important?
I think the court should be expanded, quite a lot. There is nothing magical or constitutional about the number nine. Congress could easily expand it to twenty, or fifty, or more while limiting justices by terms or age would require a constitutional amendment. Nothing says every justice has to sit on every case. A larger court would be significantly less prone to extremes, reducing the importance of individual nominations.
Firstly, I think that having been a justice, which is a very distinguished post , they would never have to worry about future employment, it would probably find them. I also think that a job for life means you don't worry about scrutiny. You can do what you want almost without consequence because you don't need to worry about what comes next. If no one can fire you, and you don't need to worry about people being happy with your performance, you can be free so act however you want. In your own interest. In the interest of some benefactor, or should you choose to, in the interest of the people.
Second, I did not say youthfulness it's important. There is a vast gulf between youthful and aged. I don't want a 20 year old justice and more than a 70 year old one.
Lastly, expanding it would be great. No arguments here.
