By Harris Van Pate for Younger Voices
Final month, President Biden gave a speech on the LBJ Presidential Library proposing a brand new coverage that would scale back the time period of Supreme Court docket justices from lifetime tenure to 18 years. In doing so, Biden claimed the transfer would make justices extra attentive to public opinion.
If Biden’s proposal had been in place from our nation’s founding, we might be with out a few of the most essential opinions of the Court docket’s prior justices, together with from justices beloved by Biden’s celebration, comparable to Justice Ginsburg.
Justice Ginsburg entered america Supreme Court docket in 1993 and served till she died in late 2020, a complete of 27 years of service. She was broadly thought of one of many hardest-working justices in fashionable historical past. Beneath President Biden’s proposal, Justice Ginsburg would have left the court docket in 2011, earlier than issuing any of the selections she made over the past 9 years of her life and tenure.
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Whereas one other Democrat-appointed justice might need changed her (they usually could have dominated equally), few authorized minds come near Ginsburg’s. Eradicating her from the Supreme Court docket would have disadvantaged the court docket of a fantastic thinker, author, and choose, and lots of of her hottest and a-political majorities and dissents would have by no means occurred.
Justice Ginsburg made many essential choices throughout her final 9 years in workplace. In 2015, she wrote the bulk opinion in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Unbiased Redistricting Fee, by which she dominated that the folks of Arizona might, through referendum, give redistricting energy to a bipartisan fee. This was a 5-4 determination, that means that her vote was essential to the bulk.
She additionally wrote the bulk opinion within the 2019 case Timbs v. Indiana, when the court docket dominated that the Eighth Modification stops states from imposing extreme fines for prison penalties. Becoming a member of Justice Kennedy’s 5-4 majority in Obergefell v. Hodges was decisive in permitting same-sex marriage to obtain federal safety. Justice Kennedy, who wrote the bulk opinion, was in his twenty seventh yr within the court docket. With out both of those justices, we would not have nationwide protections for same-sex marriage.
Whereas President Biden argued that an 18-year restrict would defend voting rights, lots of Justice Ginsburg’s most potent arguments in favor of voting rights protections would have by no means occurred if Biden’s coverage have been in place. Whether or not becoming a member of with a majority or dissenting, Justice Ginsburg’s opinions have had an unimaginable impression on fashionable voting rights, particularly after her first 18 years in workplace.
On her twentieth yr in workplace, Ginsburg authored her most well-known dissenting opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, the place three different justices joined together with her dissent arguing for continued federal protections for minority voters.
Throughout her twenty sixth yr in workplace, she authored a 5-4 majority opinion in Virginia Home of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, which established that state attorneys normal, moderately than legislators, should litigate federal racial gerrymandering circumstances. These circumstances concerned alleged silencing of minority votes, and neither of her opinions would have existed had Biden’s time period limits existed.
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After we hear proposals like this from highly effective politicians, we must always not restrict our minds to the politics of the second. As an alternative, we must always give attention to the long-term results such a coverage might need on the Court docket.
What looks as if a good suggestion at present would possibly quickly deny our nation the subsequent Justice Ginsburg, O’Connor or Kennedy. Eradicating our nation’s most skilled justices as a result of they’ve develop into burdensome to the present political agenda may have damaging penalties that result in prioritizing politics over the legislation and justice. The very last thing we want is additional politicization of the Court docket.
I sincerely hope our nation doesn’t move an modification such because the one President Biden has proposed. If we do, our nation’s excessive court docket would lose its final bastion of unbiased, a-political decision-making.
HarrisVanPate is a Younger Voices contributor and Coverage Analyst specializing in authorized and public coverage on the Maine Coverage Institute. He’s additionally an Adjunct Analysis Fellow on the Free State Basis and has labored for quite a few public coverage organizations. Observe him on Twitter @Harris_VanPate.
