The current controversy over the Supreme
Court vacancy caused by the death of Justice
Scalia is an example of the problem
caused by randomly-timed court vacancies.
Different presidents make differing
numbers of court appointments for no reason
other than the random timing of deaths
or retirements. An improved system would
provide for fixed 18 year terms for justices,
with one vacancy occuring every two years (at
a regularly scheduled date in each odd-numbered
year).
Even more important than the specific procedure
is the rules-in-advance principle. The problem
with debating whether the Senate should consider
a nomination made by a president in the last year
of a term is that people are more likely to think
of the current situation rather than the general
principle. Whatever your position on this issue,
the question is: would your position be different
if the two political parties were in the opposite
situation with the presidency and the Senate?
If your answer would be different, that illustrates
the problem. If today you say your answer would be the same,
the problem is this: how can people be sure you
are sincere (unless you can show you were consistent
when a similar situation previously happened with the
position of the two parties being reversed).
Establishing a fixed schedule for future Supreme
Court vacancies would solve the problem because
everyone would know in advance when the vacancies
would come. (There would also need to be a clearly
defined-in-advance rule about how late in a term a
President could make an appointment if an unexpected
vacancy did happen because a justice dies in the
middle of an 18-year term.) More about this in
Freedom, Opportunity, and Security.
……………..
–Douglas Downing
You are welcome to write your comments on the facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/DouglasADowningSPU/?ref=profile
This blog is part of the
Seattle Pacific University Political Economy blog group.
New items will be posted about three times per week.
douglasadowning 