Should judges be democratically elected?

[JohnRM]

I am Unsure/Conflicted.

I am not a fan of too many elections. If it were up to me, Senators would still be appointed by the state legislature and there would be not popular vote for the Presidency, but rather a jury-style electoral college, selection by the state legislatures, or something along those lines. The most significant reason that voter turnout in the United States is low is that we have so many elections. This would also push politics down to a lower level and increase the power of the states and local government.

So if you think even the president should not be democratically elected, then who exactly do you think should? County commissioners?

Logical deduction would lead one to conclude that I support continued elections for members of the House of Representatives, state governors, state legislators, and the various local government posts as determined necessary by the people of that locality. We're talking about eliminating elections for a total of three posts per person.

[PJ]

No, the judicial branch ideally should not be subjected to popular opinion. I recognize that it's not totally devoid of influence from public opinion now, but electing them would be even worse than the status quo in that regard.

Yes, but only if it's a nonpartisan election.

Elections are always partisan.

I meant that judges shouldn't run as members or nominees of political parties. A ideological divide in many of these races would be inevitable, but party politics would be very bad indeed.

What's the difference? Even if (D) or (R) aren't on the ballot, there's going to be default Republican and Democratic candidates. Hell, Supreme Court justices have default political affiliations now, despite the fact that they're not elected.

That being said, judges should face term limits.

This would result in huge inconsistencies in constitutional law, because judges would be frequently replaced, and new judges would throw out previous rulings commonly.

[politicallefty]

There really is no point in having a written Constitution that protects rights and liberties when those that are the final arbiter of such rights and liberties are subject to the will of the majority.

I do, however, see merits in having judicial term limits. For the Supreme Court, with the current nine Justice configuration (which should probably be cemented as well), an 18 year term limit would probably work quite well. With that in place, there would be a Justice up every two years. We would know up front that a President would be guaranteed two Supreme Court nominations and four if he/she were reelected.

(For those on the right that all of a sudden want to radically change the judiciary, I'd say you should be careful what you wish for. I have full confidence in the American people that Justice Ginsburg would have no problem with any sort of vote, whether it be retention or competition. However, I think it's quite likely that Justice Thomas would find rather huge difficulties in retaining his seat on the Court.)