Scott Lemieux's grabbed onto one of my favorite hobby horses, the total idiocy of lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court. The whole thing is just a maze of perverse incentives: appoint the young rather than the old (and maybe more experienced), have Supreme Court justices hang on until like-minded Administrations enter office and can appoint ideologically acceptable replacements, have them hang on well into senility because the job is good and it gives them pleasure, etc.
Moreover, if we had, say, a 12-year time limit, there wouldn't be these weeks of feverish anticipation as we hope, plan, and strategize for retirements that may or may not come. Instead, we'd know when most Justices were going to step down. the White House could be ready with a nominee, and so forth. It'd be much more orderly, in addition to more democratic, as enhanced turnover will mean Justices more sensitive to contemporary public opinion. Better yet, the occasional extremist elevated to the Court wouldn't be able to affect the law for decades on end. Like everyone else, s/he'd have a time limit and an end point, and both sides should take comfort in that.
So why don't we do this? I know it's hard to change the constitution, but it'd seem to me that both Republicans and Democrats could support this kind of reform. After all, our choices would be as surely term-limited as theirs, and we could stipulate that it only affects future nominees so as not to impose a time limit on a Court they'd like. Why wouldn't they buy in?
