I’ve considered that, and also bench limits for all judges.
Consequences: an executive stacks the courts for at least their own first term in office. Senates are kept busy with confirmation hearings, which are either rammed through, or become partisan Borkings, distracting senators from boring and scrofulous legislative work – this may be a plus.
To keep the process fairly clean, former judges and justices can never again apply for a judicial position, which insulates them from political influence – but not bribes. Thus, judicial bench limits will encourage bribery.
A lifetime appointment means they’ll never have to campaign again. That’s the insulation from political intercerence.
It does have some merit, though I think the method as laid out in the constitution does explicitly say that bills have to pass both chambers, so it might require some sort of framing resolution.
If we are going to go down the path of reforming the Constitution, then I would look to other parliaments to see how a bicameral system could be implemented. The model I think would work best would be to make the Senate more akin to the House of Lords in the UK, or the Bundesrat in Germany. My suggestion:
All legislation originates and is deliberated in the House.
The Senate must then deliberate and can vote to approve or to reject the bill. Failure to vote within a set time is considered a tacit approval, and moves on to be signed by the president
Senators are no longer elected, but are appointed by the governors and legislatures of the state, and may be recalled at any time. Note: I am not so sure about this idea, to be honest, but I do think the Senate should be explicitly representatives of the states as discrete identities, and the House represent the people as a whole.
Edit: I just thought of another thing to add: territories also get representatives, and districts are no longer drawn by the states. Congressional districts can cross state lines. As for the Senate, I would toss out my earlier idea, and instead allow the election of two senators to represent all US citizens not living in a state — that is, all those living in territories as well as expatriates. Expatriate citizens also no longer vote in the last state they lived in, but are counted as living in a unique district (or districts, if there are enough of them).
I’d stagger them, once a year, not all at once. You’d only have to figure out a fair way to handle deaths/retirements. I’m sure someone has already thought of a way to address that.
SCOTUS judges don’t campaign. I’m confused as to what you’re talking about there.
The current lifetime appointment system is clearly massively partisan and broken, and needs to be changed.
There is so much broken with the Senate, it’s hard to know where to start, other than getting rid of the ridiculous filibuster. Certainly the way bills are brought to the floor is beyond broken.
Deaths/Retirements would be handled by interim appointments. Someone to fill the seat until the next regularly scheduled appointment.
With terms being limited to 9 years this shouldn’t happen too often.
One caveat of this approach is that after an 8 year term the court would likely be heavily ideologically stacked in the President’s direction. It kind of wrecks the idea of the court being nonpartisan, although that’s a bit hard to defend in the modern day to start with. It might make sense to have the appointment be every 2 years, but this would make for 18 year terms. Some will say that is too long, but I’m not sure.
Disagree. The best way would be to pass a new Voting Rights Act. Georgia, I would bet, is already preparing legislation to disenfranchise Democratic voting blocs and make sure 2020 never happens again, and ALEC will be putting together model voter suppression laws to get passed in every Republican legislature. Ensuring broad voter participation will end this minority rule. Even the deepest red states are not that red, just that suppressed.
