Democrats love nothing more than to brand Donald Trump as power-hungry. But their own lust for power — eternal power over the federal government — is as transparent as it is all-consuming. Open the southern border wide to illegal aliens (aka future Democrats)? Check. Confer statehood on D.C. and Puerto Rico, both Democratic strongholds? Check. End the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court? Checkmate.
But the Democrats are an enterprising lot, always looking for new ways to game the system to achieve their diabolical ends. Which brings us to their latest masterpiece: imposing term limits of 18 years on Supreme Court Justices. Via Reuters:
Democrats in of the House of Representatives will introduce a bill next week to limit the tenure of U.S. Supreme Court justices to 18 years from current lifetime appointments, in a bid to reduce partisan warring over vacancies and preserve the court’s legitimacy.
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“It would save the country a lot of agony and help lower the temperature over fights for the court that go to the fault lines of cultural issues and is one of the primary things tearing at our social fabric,” said California U.S. Representative Ro Khanna, who plans to introduce the legislation on Tuesday, along with Representatives Joe Kennedy III of Massachusetts and Don Beyer of Virginia.
The idea is frankly not a bad one. In fact, it should be applied to both houses of Congress as well as the Supreme Court.
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But the Democrats’ timing, right on the heels of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and with full knowledge that Donald Trump will likely make a third appointment to the high court before the election, seems a little too convenient. (RELATED: Pelosi warns about filling SCOTUS seat: Republicans are ‘coming after your children’)
Reuters doesn’t specify whether the bill if passed would apply retroactively. If it did, it would instantly pare away the two current longest-serving justices, Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed in 1991 and is 11 years over the limit, and Stephen Breyer, who was confirmed in 1994 and is 8 years over the limit. The Democrats would lose one of their own in the offing, but it would create two immediate vacancies.
After that the real fun begins. Conservatives John Roberts, who was confirmed in 2005, and Samuel Alito, who was confirmed in 2006, would be gone in 3 and 4 years respectively.
If the Democrats succeed in running the table on Nov. 3 and win the presidency and Senate, while retaining control of the House, they could implement all of the plans detailed in the opening paragraph. It would be a matter of only a few years before they could start building an all-progressive Dream Court.
