Justice Anthony Kennedy retiring

[Kane]

[exploited]

[ToddStarnes]

People have absolutely lost it. Its surreal.

[Kane]

[exploited]

[John Galt]

there's a number of ways we could do this:

1. have 18 year terms, staggered so that in second and fourth year of presidency, a new justice is named.
a. the chief justice is voted on by the justices
b. the chief justice is named by the president at some point in his term (probably the beginning) from the justices currently serving

2. have 16 year terms for all justices not the chief justice, and have the chief justice have unlimited tenure.

in both situations, vacancies from deaths can be filled and those who fill them could be renominated for the same seat
in both situations, could also allow the renomination of the same person after a full term, but we could also just force retirement (or kick them back to the circuits)
in both situations, circuit courts need to be reorganized. the 9th circuit has 29 judges and covers 20% of the population, while the 10th circuit has 12 judges and covers 5% of the population. changing the structure of this so that it is more evened out would be a good thing to do at this time because we also need to put limits on appeals court judges. we could also require previous work experience before nomination to a higher court

with it becoming more routine, it won't be the end of the world. it also means that failure on the part of the senate to vote for a nominee within say, a month of congress being in session, automatically appoints the nominee as they gave their consent by not acting

[ToddStarnes]

[exploited]

I'm not going to hijack Galt's thread any further, because it looks like he actually wants to discuss the meat of this matter, but I'll just say this one final thing:

Both of you desperately need to involve yourself in IRL politics. You seem to think that yelling at politicians and people being mean to them at their homes or while they appear in public is a new and dangerous practice. The only way you can possibly have this belief is if you simply haven't been around any level of politician for any extended period of time, ever. It is actually shocking to me how ignorant you are of basic democratic norms and practices. This is not a new practice, it isn't even a noteworthy practice. It has been used countless times throughout American history and has never once constituted "the end of civility." You honestly have this idea of what democracy is and acts like that is so far out of line with basic historical reality that it calls into question your ability to evaluate essentially any political tactic or policy.

[John Galt]

to be fair

it's philly's thread

[Kane]