Have we entered the twilight zone?

  • FriendOfElphaba@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    But what’s the definition of “Office” in this context? The Office of the President, for example, is defined as a span of four years. President is the title and Office includes both title and time, as do many other political positions.

    So what I’m saying is that there’s nothing there that says Congress cannot pass a law saying the Office of a Supreme Court Justice is defined as holding the position for six years.

    • Nougat@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Because the Constitution specifies term lengths for President, Senators, and Representatives, it is clear that the authors knew when those things needed to be specified. The absence of specifying a term length for Justices means that it is a life term; if the authors had intended there to be a term measured in years, one would have been mentioned.

      While I am not a lawyer, I have read enough about intepreting the Constitution to know that that is the very longstanding way to interpret this, and that it is pretty universally accepted.

      • FriendOfElphaba@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        For the record, I’m playing advocatus diaboli here. I agree that your interpretation is the traditional one.

        That said, it has not been challenged, as far as I know, and attributions of original intent (and by now even the application of previous rulings) are the subject of legal argumentation and opinion. My point was that the Constitution does not explicitly set a temporal component to the term of a federal justice, and it does not explicitly forbid one. This it would not take a constitutional amendment to set a term limit, but rather a finding that the law did not violate the constitution (which again would come down to an interpretation since it’s not explicitly set).