Below is my column in the New York Post on President Joe Biden’s call to reform the Supreme Court by ending lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices.
Here is the column:
President (and Supreme Court Chief Justice) William Howard Taft once said “presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.”
But not if Joe Biden has his way. Indeed, both the president and Court as we know it could be gone.
In a failed attempt to save his nomination, Biden offered to “reform” the Court by imposing an 18-year term limit that would jettison the three most senior conservative justices.
With only six months left in his presidency, Biden’s efforts are likely to fail, but, unfortunately, could set the stage for activists under a Harris Administration in seeking to change the Court forever.
For more than 50 years, Biden staunchly refused to play politics with the Supreme Court and support calls for “reforms” from the left of his party.
For a politician who has long been criticized for changing positions with the polls on issues from abortion to criminal justice to gun rights, the Court was one of the few areas of true principle for Biden.
Even though he refused to answer questions on packing the Court in the 2020 election, he ultimately rejected the call as president.
Yet Biden’s final principle fell this month when facing the premature and involuntary end of his candidacy. Faced with being a one-term president, the Supreme Court would have to be sacrificed.
Biden opted for the least of the evils in pushing for term limits rather than court packing.
It was the more popular option for Biden to yield on. Voters have always loved term limits.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found 67% of Americans, including 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans, support a proposal to set finite terms for justices.
But there were few law professors and even fewer Democratic members clamoring for term limits until conservatives secured a stable majority on the Court. Then, suddenly, the Court had to be “reformed” without delay.
It is no accident that the first three justices who would be term limited off the Court are conservatives: Clarence Thomas (after 33 years on the Court), Chief Justice John Roberts (after 19 years), and Justice Samuel Alito (after 18 years).
Think, however, about the iconic decisions we would have lost with term limits in place. Liberal Justice Williams Douglas’s 36 years on the Court would have literally been cut in half. He would have been kicked off in 1957.
His famous opinions like Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), striking down bans on contraceptives, would not have been written — an ironic result for those seeking limits after the Court’s ruling in Dobbs.
Likewise, liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s tenure would have ended in 2011 before she wrote her famous dissent Shelby County v. Holder (2013), defending voting rights.
Anthony Kennedy’s term would have ended in 2011 rather than 2018, before he wrote opinions such as United States v. Windsor, striking down the Defense of Marriage Act.
Obviously, other justices could have written opinions in these cases, but the point is that many justices wrote their best opinions after 18 years on the Court.
Moreover, the Framers clearly wanted these positions as lifetime appointments as an added protection against political pressure or influence.
For more than two centuries, presidents have struggled with the Supreme Court, but none (until now) have attempted to end life tenure on the Court.
Presidents have served as the firewall for the anger and radicalism that has periodically engulfed the Court.
Now President Biden is leading the mob for changing this institution for the first time since its founding.
It is a testament to what I call “an age of rage” in my new book. After years of supporting the Court when it was setting aside conservative precedent, liberals now want the Court changed to dump or dilute the majority.
It is unlikely to end there. After sending Thomas, Roberts, and Alito packing, many want to go further and pack the Court itself.
Democratic leaders such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have called for outright court packing — a proposal that Vice President Kamala Harris has suggested that she might support.
Where Biden is a political opportunist in belatedly joining this movement, Harris is a true believer from the far left.
If she is elected, the Congress is still likely to be closely divided. That will only increase pressure to convert the Court into an alternative avenue for social and political reform.
Harvard professor Michael Klarman warned that all of the plans to change the country were ultimately dependent on packing the court.
With the 2020 election, he stated that Democrats could change the election system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.”
Notably, if Biden were to seek this change as a legislative matter without a constitutional amendment, future Congresses could short terms further from 18 to 8 years or even less.
In his speech, Biden declared that he wanted the membership of the Court changed with greater “regularity.”
If Congress has this authority, it could change the occupants of the Court faster than a South Beach timeshare condo.
That is clearly the opposite of what the Framers intended, but Biden insists that these times are different and democracy will only be safeguarded by attacking one of our core stabilizing institutions.
According to the Washington Post, the president made his pledge in a Zoom call to the left-wing Congressional Progressive Caucus, chaired by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and co-chaired by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). It did not succeed in resuscitating his candidacy.
The pledge will be dead on arrival with Congress. What is left is a King Lear-like tragedy of a president, betrayed by those closest to him, and wandering the land for continued relevance.
History will show a pitiful figure who offered up the Court as the cost of staying in power, only to lose his candidacy and his legacy.
Jonathan Turley is a Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
See below as Dennis the Draft Dodger “responds to John Say” by addressing “Jonathan”.
I thnk this shows the type of mind that Dennis has.
Time for your Tapioca, Dennis.
Tell, us, just how bad has life sucked for you the last two months? The last bit of good news you had was the Trump conviction. Its been a steady diet of shit in your wheaties since then, hasn’t it?
Jonathan: I normally don’t respond to John Say but his response (7/30@11:34pm) to mine (7/30@10:18pm) does require a response since he often engages in spurious claims.
John starts by saying: “You and your ilk have convicted Trump fo (sic) non-crimes and now want to jail him for non-crimes. Sounds like animals to me.”. John ignores the fact that it was not me or my “ilk” who convicted DJT of those 34-criminal counts. It was a jury of 12 ordinary citizens of NY. Does John believe they are also “animals”? Is Justice Merchan also an “animal” because he will preside over the sentencing of DJT? The former president often refers to prosecutors and judges as less than human. That is a green light for his supporters to make death threats. One such supporter was just arrested for making death threats against DA Bragg and Justice Merchan. Does John believe that those death threats are acceptable? That’s the logical of John’s nonsense.
John goes on to predict “the case will be thrown out quickly”. He seems to think that’s based on the SC “immunity” decision. A close analysis shows John’s prediction lacks merit. Even if DJT was able to convince the NY Appellate Division that the testimony of two WH aides falls under the rubric of “official acts” that is not fatal to the case–it is “harmless error”. Why? That’s because the overwhelming documentary and the testimony of other witnesses shows the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels involved “unofficial acts”–private conduct unrelated to DJT official duties.
The trajectory of this case is pretty clear. DJT has filed an appeal of his conviction. In the meantime Justice Merchan has set sentencing for 9/18 but will stay his decision until DJT exhausts his appeals. The NY Appellate Division won’t hear DJT’s appeal until next year. What happens if DJT wins the election? Assuming DJT fails in his appeals in NY whatever sentence Justice Merchan imposes will be postponed until after DJT serves out his second term. With that possible jail term hanging over his head what will DJT do? Probably try to hang onto power by some unconstitutional means. That’s another reason DJT should never see the inside of the Oval Office ever again!
Biden, Harris, Democrats, their brainwashing media, etc have for years now ALL been calling Trump “Hitler”, a fascist, a dictator who will end “democracy” and take away your “freedoms”……
does Dennis believe these lies?
does Dennis believe these attacks, that are all lies, lies that incite violence, are acceptable?
Take note of the BRAINWASHING being done by Democrats and their propaganda media.
Dennis is brainwashed with lies and he doesn’t know it.
Dennis is brainwashed by propaganda and he doesn’t know it.
Dennis is Exhibit A for someone who knows a lot of information that is actually DISINFORMATION and LIES.
Dennis is an example of the severe damage the Democrat Brainwashing Operation has done to their voters.
People like Dennis do not know what is going on and cannot think critically with reason or logic.
They know what the Democrat “machine” wants them to know.
And nothing else.
This level of brainwashing is very scary for the country.
They just tried to assassinate Trump.
And those brainwashed by the Democrats and their media wanted him dead.
Those on the left and those on the right are not the same.
Dennis the Draft Dodger with anothwer prognostication. Never mind he has been wrong on his last 20. His latest was that Biden would win the election. How did that work out, Denny.
You normally dont respond to anyone, because when you do, it becomes apparent that you shouldn’t. You argue like a 12 year old. Your baseless claims are juvenile and hollow.
You get your opinions from The View, for gods sake. LMAO nuff said.
Dennis, It is actually alarming to see how unable you are to SEE and understand what is going on with the lawfare campaign against Trump and the blatant corruption within the “justice” system. It is OBVIOUS. Yet you cannot SEE it. The even scarier thing is that you can’t ‘wake up’ no matter how many facts are put before you. The mind control has taken hold. You now exist entirely in a bubble of disinformation and conditioned mind control. You have lost your ability to ‘think.’ There is no help for you.
Dennis — this is a starter kit summary to read so you can orient yourself to what Dems are actually doing:
“Rig your primaries in 2016, have it proven, no repercussions. Lose election, vow to impeach political opponent even though opponent has not taken office yet.
Create fake Russia Hoax against opponent.
Create fake Ukraine Hoax against opponent.
Impeach political opponent
Stoke fires of racism and allow the country to burn to the ground and bail out looters, rioters and scumbags.
Have an election and make it so you get a record number of votes whereas 46 percent of the total votes are mail in absentee ballots whereas the rest of the modern world forbids this use because of it being rampant with fraud.
Win said fraud election by receiving 80 percent of mail in ballots, but impeach political opponent again because you are afraid of said opponent.
Then import 10-15 million illegal aliens, 500k of them to be proven criminals that were strategically planted across the country.
Allow a dementia patient to run the country as a puppet for another master for 4 years.
Then, without securing a single vote in the primary, knowing you are going to lose the general election, you uninstall the leader of the absentee ballot fraud election with the least popular VP in History who did not get a single primary vote to become candidate.
Ask for thousands of volunteers then start dividing them by race to stoke talk of racial tensions once again.
Spy on your political opponent.
Try to Bankrupt your political opponent.
Try to throw your political opponent in jail.
Try to kill your political opponent.
Produce millions of social media bots from Iran and Russia to try and falsely influence polls and public perception.
Get Google and Fakebook to actually try and downplay and in some cases claim the public attempted assassination of your rival did not even happen.
Weaponize the DOJ against your political opponents.
Completely scrub the internet of the fact you have zero accomplishments and that you failed at everything.
Openly say you are going to blow up the constitution by saying you want term limits on SCOTUS.
Openly say you are coming for people’s 2A rights to disarm them when they figure out your a corrupt regime.
Call your political opponent and existential threat to democracy because you are fvcking clueless that we are a republic and not a democracy but it just sounds better.
Slap a sticker on it, call yourselves the DNC and put out Kamala Harris as the most disreputable, unreliable most unproven Stalin in stilettos in history.
About right? What’d I miss??” @DocNetyoutube
The alternate reality in which MAGAts live is truly stunning. Literally nothing you said is true, and provably false.
The primaries were NOT rigged.
A Republican Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed that Russians did help Trump’s campaingn. NOT a hoax.
Trump did try a “quid pro quo” –exchange aid to Ukraine for ginning up lies about Biden. NOT a hoax.
Trump was impeached because he committed high crimes and misdemeanors. 48 Senators voted to remove him from office, including 2 Repubicans.
The protests to which you refer followed the public murder of George Floyd. Democrats had nothing to do with it.
There is nothing wrong with mail ballots, and no amount of MAGA media lying can create nonexistent issues over mail ballots. Trump and Pence both voted by mail. According to the National Council of State Legislatures: “Eight states—California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington and the District of Columbia—allow all elections to be conducted entirely by mail.” The only thing about Trump that scares people is his mental instability, quest for unlimited power and lack of any patriotism or moral compass. AND, it was BIDEN who got the record number of votes.
Nothing you said about migrants is true. Someone seeking asylum is not “illegal” because they have a right to seek asylum.
Joe Biden does NOT have dementia.
Kamala Harris was on the primary ballot along with Joe Biden, so she was chosen. And, what’s your point?
NO Democrat: “tried to kill” Trump, tried to bankrupt him–he was found liable for sexual assault, defamation and falsifying business records in STATE court. Biden had nothing to do with it. Trump is NOT a victim–he was represented by counsel and juries found, by a preponderance of evidence, that he sexually assaulted and defamed E. Jean Carroll and beyond a reasonable doubt that the falsified business records for the purpose of influencing the election. He also was found liable for lying on loan applications and financial statements so he could qualify to borrow more money at a better interest rate than if he told the truth. The Judge found the extent of Trump’s lies “shocking to the conscience”. If Trump goes to prison, it will be because of HIS conduct–not the Democratic Party or Joe Biden. According to you, Trump should just be allowed to get away with lying under oath, defaming people, sexually assaulting women, starting an insurrection by spreading the Big Lie, stealing classified documents, etc?
There’s nothing in the Constitution that provides for any specific number of SCOTUS judges, and there have been varying numbers over the years, so no one’s “blowing up the Constitution”.
Just HOW is Biden “producing” social media bots from other countries?
You have exactly backwards who has failed at everything–that’s Trump. I posted a list yesterday of 26 failed businesses of his. OTOH, Kamala Harris has a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree, she has been a courtroom prosecutor, Attorney General and Senator. She successfully prosecuted numbers of cases, and went after sexual predators and cheaters and fraudsters. Trump managed to bankrupt 6 businesses in addition to the long list of those that failed, including Trump University which defrauded students to the tune of $25 million.
You want to speak of “disreputable”? Trump is a convicted criminal, is under dozens of indictments, is on his 3rd marriage, has been adjudicated responsible for sexual assault and defamation, falsifying loan applications and business records, and he started an insurrection because he couldn’t handle the fact that he was a LOSER in 2020. Those are FACTS. None of the lies you tell about Kamala Harris are true.
Trump IS an existential threat to America–he wants absolute power over all aspects of the government, including the DOJ and FBI–and it is TRUMP, not Biden, who plans on “weaponizing” these agencies to go after his perceived enemies. His regime plans to fire 50,000 mid-level civil servants, to cut taxes to the wealthiest, cut consumer and environmental protections, eliminate the Department of Education and NOAA, ban all abortions with a “fetal personhood” law, and cut school lunch programs, SNAP benefits and Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. His tax cuts will once again drive inflation. He is a diaster.
who is upvoting Gigi within one minute of her posting? strange.
“With the 2020 election, he (Kaltner) stated that Democrats could change the election system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.”
He would also guarantee, eventually, the violent overthrow of the federal government.
sure when Trump is elected let him appoint 3 new ones…and also REMOVE kagan and KJB for their obvious lack of legal knowledge.
Democrats…every single voter is a FASCIST
Their party needs to be destroyed….by DEFUNDING their APPALLING actions. End all federal aid to cities, states, non-profits and colleges. Cut Federal Spending by 50%
I can’t see how this is “clearly the opposite of what the Framers intended”. If the framers were clear, we would not need to know their intentions. As written, my dog is qualified to be a Justice, along with an unspecified amount of un-named species for an un-numerated amount of time. The founding document is poorly written and does not stand up to close scrutiny.
After 250 years you get it? Gotta love Americans.
Life sux, dont it
“Why Do 9 Justices Serve on the Supreme Court?”
The Constitution doesn’t specify how many justices should serve on the Court—in fact, that number fluctuated until 1869.
“Only since 1869 have there consistently been nine justices appointed to the Supreme Court. Before that, Congress routinely changed the number of justices to achieve its own partisan political goals, resulting in as few as five Supreme Court justices required by law under John Adams to as many as 10 under Abraham Lincoln.”
“The U.S. Constitution is silent about how many justices should sit on the Supreme Court. In fact, the office of Chief Justice only exists because it’s mentioned in the Constitution under Senate rules for impeachment proceedings (“When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside…”).
“It’s Congress, not the Constitution, that decides the size of the Supreme Court, which it did for the first time under the Judiciary Act of 1789. When George Washington signed the Act into law, he set the number of Supreme Court justices at six.
“Split Decisions Were Less of a Concern”
“Why six? Because Supreme Court justices in those days were also appointed to sit on federal circuit courts, of which there were 13 in 1789. Each circuit court would be presided over by three judges: one district court judge from the state and two Supreme Court justices.”
“The justices had to spend almost the entire year traveling,” says Maeva Marcus, a research professor at the George Washington University Law School and director of its Institute for Constitutional History. “And the traveling conditions were horrendous.”
“To limit the geographical area traveled by the justices, the Judiciary Act of 1789 divided the circuit courts into three regions: Eastern, Middle and Southern. The reason that the first Supreme Court had six justices was simple—so that two of them could preside in each of the three regions.
“Marcus said that no one at the time quibbled about the fact that six is an even number, which leaves open the possibility of 3-3 split decisions.
“’They never even thought about it, because all the judges were Federalists and they didn’t foresee great disagreement,’ says Marcus. ‘Plus, you didn’t always have all six justices appearing at the Supreme Court for health and travel reasons.’”
– History.com
Actions, especially dramatic and actions that ‘fundamentally change’ (Obama’s famous words over 16 years ago) our governmental institutions, have consequences.
I don’t give a hoot about the Biden ‘legacy’ and apparently those surrounding Joe don’t either.
But I do care that if Ms. Harris wins in November, there will be a type of chaos those who voted for her will say ‘how were we supposed to know she was going to be like this?’
Because the full time mainstream media are burying the truth about her and her background — and somebody’s got to do a very very good job of revealing it before citizens can do their voting, including early voting.
Contraception as in prevent conception. There is no mystery in sex… women deserve a better choice. #HumanRights #NotReproductiveRites
Voting rights as in citizen rights, where auditable votes secure civil rights.
Respect For Marriage Act is equitable and inclusive, including: transgender couplets (i.e. homosexuals) and other sexual orientations not limited to pedophilia, sadomasochism, polygamy, etc. in progressive sects. That said, civil unions for all consenting adults. #NoJudgment #NoLabels #EqualInclusive #NotPoliticalCongruence (“=”)
Reads like a Harris-ism. You go nn.
Preview of the November election:
It took Arizona more than an hour after polls closed in their primary to begin reporting the vote count.
Once it began, it only took about 10 minutes to report the first 50% of the vote totals.
Then it took another 45 minutes to get the vote totals up to 60%
At this rate of slow-down, God knows what day of the week, or what month it will be when the Arizona primary vote-count is completed.
Me replying to myself:
Arizona vote-count stuck between 66% and 67% for TWO HOURS.
what does this have to do with the thread?
Actually, term limits for federal officials, at all levels, is a good idea. The Romans realized the importance of “rotation in office”: they limited their top elected officials – the consuls – to one year, non-consecutive terms. Anthony Fauci is a prime example of someone who stayed in government too long. Joe Biden is another. Has Kamala Harris ever had a job outside government?
The FDA and CDC are unconstitutional.
Prove it.
I think a 12 year term limit across the board…judges, senate, house, president, head of FBI, CIA, etc
Supposedly, the polls closed an hour ago in the Arizona primaries, but there are still no results available online.
It’s getting harder and harder to locate reliable information about anything, anywhere.
Emerald Robinson ✝️
@EmeraldRobinson
“The Biden regime seized the property of Alex Jones.
They threw Peter Navarro in jail.
They bankrupted Gateway Pundit.
They threw Steve Bannon in jail.
They bankrupted Rudy Giuliani.
They want to throw Trump in jail.
But you think Obama will give up power in four months?”
Being a Trump supporter who was banned by Gateway Pundit the moment I disagreed with one flagrantly nonsensical article, I’m not gonna lose sleep over the Garbage Pundit going bankrupt. When you attack someone who’s agreed with you 99 times out of 100, and ban them for only agreeing with you 99% of the time, YOU are the problem, not the solution.
Navarro and Bannon should have honored the subpoenas. They could have blasted the congressional clowns while testifying or refusing to answer certain questions. It would have been HUGE news and very popular. In the alternative, they have a right to show up and invoke their 5th Amendment right to remain silent. They don’t have a right to ignore receipt of a subpoena. The way they handled the situation was STUPID. Hopefully Navarro learned not to take any more legal advice from Bannon. Their 4-month prison sentences are an inconvenience, which they will no doubt turn into positive publicity. I KNOW Bannon will.
Alex Jones stepped in it bigly. I never paid any attention to him for the simple reason that he’s capable of saying literally ANYTHING. If the expression “conspiracy theorist” didn’t exist, it would have to be invented just to describe Alex Jones. He does FAR more harm to his own cause and everyone else’s than he does good.
Trump and Giuliani are the only ones on your list that I sympathize with and support.
Navarro and Bannon should have honored the subpoenas… They don’t have a right to ignore receipt of a subpoena.
Why? What precedent should have left them feeling an obligation to do that? Like, say… the previous ten years of American justice?
Nobody from the previous Obama administration who refused to honor a subpoena from Congress while claiming executive privilege was even charged. How much subpoenaed evidence did Hillary Clinton destroy (or hide) instead of producing? Eric Holder is still running around unindicted and free. I don’t remember Holder showing up to testify about Obama gun running and then invoking the 5th Amendment.
Come to think of it, The First Felon Gun Son can’t even claim executive privilege – he refused to honor a Congressional subpoena and has yet to be indicted for that.
Now, if your position is that it was STUPID to think the American justice system that allowed Obama administration officials to ignore subpoenas and walk free would do the same when it came to them, then I definitely agree.
I don’t need to have any personal animus – or support – for either Navarro or Bannon to recognize that what is running here is a Soviet style political show trial system that Stalin’s Lavarentiy Beria would recognize.
I look forward to GOP creating a Nuremberg like Trial to jail the 1000’s of criminal democrats from across our government and their media for
Russian Hoax
Protecting Bidens’ crimes
J6 Hoax
Helping Illegals
Persecuting Trump and his people
Helping China
Election CRIMES!
weird how Democrats ARE NEVER jailed
Menendez? Comey? Strzok? etc
They did not bankrupt The Gateway Pundit. TGP fraudulently filed for bankruptcy to try to get out of two well-deserved defamation suits. The court recognized that the filing was made in bad faith and dismissed it, so now TGP will have to face its victims who will likely get the very large judgments that they deserve. Then TGP will be bankrupt and will have to close, and the world will be a slightly better place for it. Only slightly better, but I’ll take it. The Hoft brothers are almost as bad as Alex Jones, or Joe Biden.
Since I dont read this page much anymore, I forgot how nutty the pro-Democrat propagandists are here. They are monomaniacal apologists for the worst leadership in American history. I find very few of my Democrat friends agree with the kind of tripe you can read here or in the big mass media anymore.
And let me say I have grown up in the bosom of Democrat USA Rust Belt land, and I’m personally aquainted with far higher level Dem politicos than Republicans. They are very cynical power lusters, in general, at the top, and the climbers who aid them, and totally in hock to big global American based multinational corporations. The longer time goes by the more of a closet socialist I’m becoming, disgusted deeply with the utter fakeness of this crew, especially in the wake of the Trump shooting and the Harris coup. It’s been a long few weeks and gonna be a longer 3 months to come. Pray for us all. Pray for our friend and enemies too. Too many storms are brewing now to count.
At some point faith in Divine Providence is all that’s left when all the institutions around us are failing. Just don’t quit. Understand all an insurgent needs to do in order to win is outlive the occupation. We can do that. We will take casualties and we may end up poorer than today but resilience and tenacity and patience can win the wars that big money and big tech arrogantly have picked in the first place. And oh they’re losing here and there now quite a bit, and they’re gonna lose more. We need to stand clear when they fall, and to my Republican friends, I say you better become ever more the party of the people, and disdain the imperialist projects of the past and all your vain hopes in the shibboleth of “capitalism” which as false a god of a system as that golden calf ever was. As much as any other bogus slogan including the vague idol of “democracy.” Eschew all these ideologies and adopt utterly ruthless practicality as your guide, situationally, on behalf of the common good.
Slogan, bromides, and impersonal systems will not save us. Only people, and our shared will, and the divine providence and many blessings of our ancestors and maybe even our future descendants all combining across space and time.
Sal Sar
Weirdo.
See below as Dennis the Draft Dodger tries to explain Kamala’s new flip flops
wyrd bid ful araed!
saloth sar