Democrats this week proposed legislation aiming to create term limits for Supreme Court justices that, if enacted, would first force Justice Clarence Thomas into semi-retirement.
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, proposed the bill, the Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act, which would allow the president to nominate Supreme Court justices every two years, or the first and third years after a presidential election.
The longest-serving justice on the court, which is presently Thomas, would be moved to senior status first under the proposal. The measure would aim to have justices serve a maximum of 18 years on the court to which they would retire from active service and assume senior status, a term which is typically used to describe semi-retirement for federal judges.
TWO-THIRDS SUPPORT TERM LIMITS FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICES: POLL
If the bill is enacted, justices on the bench would enter senior status in the order of which they have served the longest.
Under this status, justices would still hold their office in the high court and would still be entitled to duties and pay. If the number of justices fell below nine at any point due to disqualification, vacancy, or any other inability to preside over the case, the justice who most recently assumed senior status would act as the ninth associate justice.
Johnson described the need for the legislation in a statement, saying the high court is “increasingly facing a legitimacy crisis.”
“Five of the six conservative justices on the bench were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, and they are now racing to impose their out-of-touch agenda on the American people, who do not want it,” he said, calling out the justices who were appointed under the administrations of Presidents Donald Trump and George W. Bush.
Johnson is backed by several other Democratic lawmakers, including co-sponsors Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) as well as Reps. David Cicilline (D-RI), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Karen Bass (D-CA), and Ro Khanna (D-CA).
The effort, Johnson said, has backing in the upper chamber, with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) sponsoring companion legislation.
The bill’s proposal follows weeks of outrage among Democrats and abortion proponents in the wake of the June 24 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which saw the justices rule 6-3 to curtail 49 years of abortion access precedent under Roe v. Wade by allowing states to impose laws severely limiting or restricting abortion access for women.
Democrats have also expressed vehement opposition to Thomas’s concurrence in the Dobbs decision in which he argued the high court should “correct the error” of rulings that protect same-sex marriage and contraception access. His words recently prompted the House to pass a bill that would codify same-sex marriage into federal law.
Johnson’s legislation follows a separate bill proposed earlier this month by a coalition of House Democrats that seeks to expand the number of justices on the bench by four seats to a total of 13 justices.
Since 1869, the court has been made up of nine justices who are guaranteed a life tenure on the bench, though the number of justices on the bench has fluctuated six times since 1789.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
However, Democrats have increasingly challenged the present norm, due in part to the conservative supermajority that has drastically altered abortion precedent, expanded religious freedoms, and reined in some of the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to mitigate climate change.
The current high court is composed of six Republican-appointed justices: Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Thomas. There are also three Democratic-appointed justices: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the newest member of the Supreme Court.
