SENATE BILL: Judicial Term Length Amendment (Failed)

[TJ in Oregon]

In Atlasia having lifetime appointments does not make much sense because we run on a condensed time scale from real life. A 3-year term is the equivalent of serving 36 years in real life. But here justices do not age correspondingly fast, so it can put the Supreme Court position essentially out of play. The scarcity of cases the Supreme Court regularly hears coupled with long tenures makes the court a mostly forgotten aspect of the game. Having a term limit would cause some level of turnover and interest in the office, but I also want to make a limit long enough that  the Supreme Court is not politicized.

[TJ in Oregon]

Accepted as friendly.

[TJ in Oregon]

I am open to ruling out reappointments, but only if we make it longer than a year. It wouldn't necessarily need to be quite 3 years, but I think a year would be too short if we're going to forbid justices from staying on multiple terms.

[TJ in Oregon]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Sponsor Feedback: Unknown
Status: Pending

I'm going to call this one unfriendly because I don't think it would affect the politicization problem it was intended to solves at all.

[TJ in Oregon]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Sponsor Feedback: Unknown
Status: Pending

I'm going to call this one unfriendly because I don't think it would affect the politicization problem it was intended to solves at all.

How long should it be, then?

I thought the point was to get rid of re-appointments? All this does is limit them to three terms.

[TJ in Oregon]

Here's a version that would eliminate re-appointments so that political considerations are not part of Supreme Court decisions:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Also, with structural amendments like this one, I believe it is best to have them take effect several months later so that there is no political incentive beyond support and dissent, so I'm going to propose the following amendment:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[TJ in Oregon]

I should have mentioned this earlier, but if we prohibit re-appointments entirely, couldn't that potentially lead to a shortage in potential appointees if there are fewer people available to serve on the Court?

No because they could be appointed again later under the amendment I offered, just not consecutively.

[TJ in Oregon]

As Redalgo pointed out the wording of Item 6 needed to be changed to make it so that the term ends either after two years or retirement, not both.

Here's the newest amendment:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[TJ in Oregon]

Aye