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Former Attorney General Bill Barr is big mad. Yes, according to Fox News’ own polling, Supreme Court reform is wildly popular — on a bipartisan level. But he is doing everything in his power to knock them down. In an op-ed today, he, along with co-author Kelly Shackelford of the First Liberty Institute, comes out swinging.
Joe Biden’s Supreme Court reform proposal (supported by Kamala Harris) includes a functional 18-year term limit for SCOTUS and an enforceable code of ethics. Again, both of these ideas have mainstream support (78%!), but he still proceeds to fear monger.
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Violating the Constitution and fundamental principles of separation of powers, “ethics reform” is an attempt to give enemies of the judiciary the power to punish justices who rule against the left’s agenda by subjecting them to investigations and fabricated scandals. The “term limits” proposal would require an amendment to the Constitution and is intentionally designed as a partisan move to purge the Supreme Court of conservative justices, immediately removing the longest-serving and most conservative justices first, including textualists Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
That is demonstrably untrue. Lower federal courts have an enforceable ethics code, and yet the jobs of Aileen Cannon and Matthew Kacsmaryk remain safe. The left would absolutely love to see those two bozos off the federal judiciary, but it’s not happening. That’s because ethics codes are not used to “punish” judges, but it does stop some of the worst abuses that have become all too common on the High Court.
And there’s absolutely a way to impose a functional term limit on the Supreme Court without an amendment, but more to the point, it just feels fair. The justices wouldn’t feel an obligation to postpone retirement until someone of their own party wins the presidency, or feel an indefinite financial burden because of their Court service because they’d have a clear end date to the bulk of their SCOTUS responsibilities. And every single presidential term would contain two SCOTUS nominations, which ensures the Court is not wildly out of sync with the majority of Americans… you know, like it is now.
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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].