The Justice Amendment - an imperfect amendment that is reasonable given an imperfect system of government
"c1. Judges of the Supreme Court appointed by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate will not serve until the end of the presidential term, or the president is removed from office by Death, Resignation, or Inability to serve
c2. The number of Justices on the Supreme Court will increase from eight Associate Justices and the Chief Justice to twelve Associate Justices and the Chief Justice
c3. Judges may only serve one term at a maximum of 12 years."
C1: The Supreme Court will always have an adequate number of Justices to make decisions from multiple viewpoints, which reflects the growing population, increased education, and diversity of thought that occurs in the United States
C1: This will also prevent judges from being appointed for the sole purpose of pushing a policy agenda, as we have seen numerous times in incredibly radical ways like FDR and Donald Trump
- C1: FLAW: There may be moments where there are fewer judges than usual, but this is circumvented by the increased number of judges.
- C1 FLAW: Presidents serve 2 terms, so it may give the incumbent something to run on for their second term, but regardless it makes it harder to run a campaign on the premise of packing the courts in a certain way to push a policy through so I still believe that the Amendment will be effective.
C2: Something to note is that while the Supreme Court should represent some diversity of thought, I would not recommend increasing the total number of Justices past thirteen, as it may become easier to pack. Too many judges may begin to make decision-making more inefficient instead of more thoughtful.
C3: The Hamiltonian approach is flawed (Federalist 78). Hamilton proposes that judges need life appointments because there are very few people who are qualified to be judges of such a high standard; therefore, it's important to keep them for as long as possible, rather than replace them with someone underqualified. I don't completely agree with Hamilton’s proposal. I think that judges serving a single lengthy term may be permissible, but their service being tenured permits one judge’s opinion to be more powerful than another’s because of the length of their tenure.
C3: Instead, we have to increase the standard of general education and provide that education to more people from diverse communities (as we already have, especially since the late 18th century), so that we can have more competent judges who can replace them
C3: We need people moving in and out of the government to keep it energetic as Hamilton himself writes in Fed 70 however, I understand the idea that he wants judges with more wisdom, but I don't think Hamilton was thinking about the fact that they could have old senile men dying in the Chief Justice Chair (although maybe he did, he wasn't the greatest guy when it came to moral political philosophy)
DEBATING: What is the right length of time for one to serve on the Supreme Court? Perhaps make it 10-12 years, but any less than that feels unnecessary and we may actually run into the Hamilton problem of beginning to pull in inexperienced judges, I simply think there is some balancing that needs to be done and perhaps the part of the Amendment determining the term length and number of Justices serving on the court should remain the duty of Congress creating legislation. Still, frankly, it's not a responsibility an ever-changing and corrupt Congress can be trusted with.
Eddit: Changed eleven associate justices to twelve for a total of thirteen justices so that the number remains odd. Also changed 16 year terms to 12.
