“Lack of Respect for the Law: Implementing Term Limits for SCOTUS, Beginning with John Roberts.”
The United States Supreme Court has recently been making headlines surrounding the overturning of recent laws.
Writer Ira Shapiro, in his 2023 article for The Hill, “The Supreme Court Needs Term Limits: John Roberts’s Term Should Be First”, writes, “according to respected polls, public approval of the Supreme Court has dropped precipitously to the lowest level in the 50 years that it has been measured… America has found itself in the grip of an extreme court majority, which shows no respect for the law, precedent, constitutional rights and personal freedom, or the other branches of government.”
This statement comes after the Court has overturned the most recent rulings: Roe v. Wade (1973), which protected the right to have an abortion, and Affirmative Action regarding college admission. But what continues to be a conundrum to some and perhaps a surprise to some is the Supreme Court is one of the only appointment positions that does not have term limits.
Writers Alicia Bannon and Michael Milov-Cordoba, in their 2023 report for the Brennan Center for Justice, writes, “today’s Supreme Court has assumed a degree of power and importance that would have been unrecognizable in the founding era. A recent cascade of ethics scandals has laid bare a system in which justices wield tremendous power for decades with little accountability…on average, justices today sit on the bench for more than a decade longer than their predecessors did as recently as the 1960s. Several justices now on the Court are likely to hold office over as many as nine presidential terms. Unbounded tenure allows a single justice to shape the direction of the law for generations, without regard for the evolving views and composition of the electorate. It puts justices in an elite and unaccountable bubble for decades. No other major democracy in the world provides life tenure for high court judges who hear constitutional cases.”
Certainly, controversy and politics are not strangers to one another but in recent years, the Supreme Court’s recent decisions has taken this sentiment to a whole new level. All political appointments and leadership positions are microcosms of leadership in everyday organizations. The cornerstone of success in any organization is not only a strong sense of trust between leadership and supporting members and the greater public but also a firm understanding and engagement of continuous improvement.
The United States of America has drastically changed since 1789 and therefore the ruling laws of the land need to reflect that. The lack of trust in the incumbent Supreme Court leadership and the absence of any system of checks and balances or term limitations begs the question if the powers that be are truly leading America into the age of Innovation.
