Retiring Life Tenure: On Term Limits and Regular Appointments at the Supreme Court

Judicial Politics and Judicial Reform

The Cycles of Constitutional Time ◽

10.1093/oso/9780197530993.003.0011 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 148-156

Author(s):

Jack M. Balkin

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Judicial Politics ◽

Term Limits ◽

Early Years ◽

Constitutional Reform ◽

Judicial Reform ◽

Judicial Appointments ◽

Federal Judiciary ◽

Liberal Democratic ◽

The Supreme Court

In the early years of the next regime, conservative courts will face off against liberal Democratic politicians. Courts are very unlikely to be able to do much to repair constitutional rot. Constitutional renewal must come from popular mobilizations and demands for reform, including constitutional reform. Growing frustration with the courts will lead to calls for reform of the federal judiciary. Reforms should aim at lowering the stakes of judicial appointments and assisting depolarization. Court-packing proposals achieve neither goal. Three better approaches are (1) instituting regular appointments to the Supreme Court; (2) achieving the equivalent of term limits for Supreme Court justices by changing quorum rules; (3) increasing the Court’s workload (instead of limiting its jurisdiction); and (4) using sunrise provisions that take effect in the future so that partisan advantages are harder to predict. Each of these proposals can be implemented constitutionally through ordinary legislation.

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Can Structural Changes Fix the Supreme Court?

The Journal of Economic Perspectives ◽

10.1257/jep.35.1.119 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 35 (1) ◽

pp. 119-142

Author(s):

Daniel Hemel

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Structural Changes ◽

Term Limits ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

The Us ◽

Us Supreme Court ◽

Age Limits ◽

Legitimacy Crisis ◽

Selection Of ◽

Normative Implications

Proposals for structural changes to the US Supreme Court have attracted attention in recent years amid a perceived “legitimacy crisis” afflicting the institution. This article first assesses whether the court is in fact facing a legitimacy crisis and then considers whether prominent reform proposals are likely to address the institutional weaknesses that reformers aim to resolve. The article concludes that key trends purportedly contributing to the crisis at the court are more ambiguous in their empirical foundations and normative implications than reformers often suggest. It also argues that prominent reform proposals—including term limits, age limits, lottery selection of justices, and explicit partisan balance requirements for court membership—are unlikely to resolve the institutional flaws that proponents perceive. It ends by suggesting a more modest (though novel) reform, which would allocate two lifetime appointments per presidential term and allow the size of the court to fluctuate within bounds.

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Unsteady Architecture: Ambiguity, the Senate Reference, and the Future of Constitutional Amendment in Canada

McGill Law Journal ◽

10.7202/1034056ar ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 60 (4) ◽

pp. 883-903 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Emmett Macfarlane

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Term Limits ◽

Unintended Consequences ◽

Constitutional Amendment ◽

The Political ◽

Retirement Age ◽

Logical Consistency ◽

Political Implications ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

The Future

This article critically examines the Supreme Court of Canada’s opinion in the Senate Reform Reference from the perspective of its coherence in interpreting the various amending procedures in Part V of the Constitution Act, 1982. It analyzes the ways that the underlying logic of the Court’s reasoning, particularly with respect to the method of selecting senators and senatorial term limits, creates ambiguity and risks unintended consequences for future attempts at constitutional amendment. The Court’s explicit refusal to distinguish between the federal government’s unilateral ability to enact a retirement age and its logic that term limits, regardless of length, require the consent of the provinces under the general amending procedure lacks logical consistency and arguably erodes the unilateral amending procedure to a problematic degree. In the context of its reasoning with respect to changes to the method of selecting senators, the Court’s reliance on the amorphous notion of the “constitutional architecture” clouds the definable limits of “method of selection” under section 42(1)(b). The Senate Reform Reference introduces considerable ambiguity into what changes the federal executive can implement with respect to the appointments process itself. The article concludes by exploring the political implications that the decision has for the future of Senate reform specifically and for our ability to amend the constitution generally.

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Malpractice & Negligence: Cal. Supreme Court Clarifies Negligence Provisions under State’s Elder Abuse Act

The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics ◽

10.1017/s1073110500012973 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 203-203

Author(s):

Kendra Carlson

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Supreme Court ◽

Health Care Providers ◽

Elder Abuse ◽

Skilled Nursing Facility ◽

Pressure Sores ◽

Care Providers ◽

Nursing Facility ◽

Skilled Nursing ◽

The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of California held, in Delaney v. Baker, 82 Cal. Rptr. 2d 610 (1999), that the heightened remedies available under the Elder Abuse Act (Act), Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code, §§ 15657,15657.2 (West 1998), apply to health care providers who engage in reckless neglect of an elder adult. The court interpreted two sections of the Act: (1) section 15657, which provides for enhanced remedies for reckless neglect; and (2) section 15657.2, which limits recovery for actions based on “professional negligence.” The court held that reckless neglect is distinct from professional negligence and therefore the restrictions on remedies against health care providers for professional negligence are inapplicable.Kay Delaney sued Meadowood, a skilled nursing facility (SNF), after a resident, her mother, died. Evidence at trial indicated that Rose Wallien, the decedent, was left lying in her own urine and feces for extended periods of time and had stage I11 and IV pressure sores on her ankles, feet, and buttocks at the time of her death.

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Medical and Legal Issues Raised by the Protz Decision Issued by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Guides Newsletter ◽

10.1001/amaguidesnewsletters.2017.julaug03 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 22 (4) ◽

pp. 12-13

Author(s):

LuAnn Haley ◽

Marjorie Eskay-Auerbach

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Scientific Evidence ◽

Workers Compensation ◽

Sixth Edition ◽

Complex Concept ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

Compensation Claims ◽

Recent Edition ◽

Impairment Ratings ◽

Definition Of

Abstract Pennsylvania adopted the impairment rating provisions described in the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides) in 1996 as an exposure cap for employers seeking predictability and cost control in workers’ compensation claims. In 2017, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania handed down the Protz decision, which held that requiring physicians to apply the methodology set forth in the most recent edition of the AMA Guides reflected an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the American Medical Association. The decision eliminates the impairment-rating evaluation (IRE) mechanism under which claimants were assigned an impairment rating under the most recent edition of the AMA Guides. The AMA Guides periodically are revised to include the most recent scientific evidence regarding impairment ratings, and the AMA Guides, Sixth Edition, acknowledges that impairment is a complex concept that is not yet defined in a way that readily permits an evidence-based definition of assessment. The AMA Guides should not be considered standards frozen in time simply to withstand future scrutiny by the courts; instead, workers’ compensation acts could state that when a new edition of the AMA Guides is published, the legislature shall review and consider adopting the new edition. It appears unlikely that the Protz decision will be followed in other jurisdictions: Challenges to using the AMA Guides in assessing workers’ compensation claims have been attempted in three states, and all attempts failed.

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