18 is Enough
May 29 2008 / by juldrich
Category: Culture Year: Beyond Rating: 14 Hot
By Jack Uldrich
An opinion piece.
When the next president of the United States is sworn into
office on January 20, 2009, six of the nine justices on the Supreme
Court will be over 70 years of age. The prospect that a majority of
the members of the court could be selected by the next president —
especially if he or she wins a second term — is very real.
Regardless of one’s political leanings this is a serious issue and it transcends the fear of a future court being packed by ideologues whose views counter to one’s own convictions.
Every day radical advances in medical technology bring society ever closer to new treatments and possible cures for cancer, heart disease and a host of other ailments. Among the many things that this implies is that society could soon be on the verge of achieving life expectancies of 100 years or higher.
Combined with the possibility of so many new and younger justices being appointed by the next president this means that there is a reasonable chance many of these justices could still be on the court in the year 2060 – 2060!
It is hard to imagine that the Founding Father’s—who were interested in insulating Supreme Court justices from the political pressures typically associated with legislative and executive branches of government—ever contemplated the prospect of wide-spread radical life extension when granting the justices life-time tenure.
One solution which has been proposed by law professors Steven Calabresi and James Lindgren of Northwestern University is to cap the justices’ terms at 18 years—or the equivalent of three U.S. Senate terms. (Under their plan a constitutional amendment would grandfather in all existing justices and then create staggered 18-year terms such that every president would be ensured of selecting a minimum of two justices.) (cont.)
In addition to preventing the troubling prospect of the next president still exerting a disproportionate amount of influence a half century hence; the plan would ensure that the public—by selecting the president—would have some modest control over the make-up of the country’s high court. This, in turn, might lessen the intense political rancor which so often accompanies today’s confirmation hearings.
Moreover, by rotating judicial terms, the system might provide some level of generational balance to future courts as well as provide a measure of certainty that subsequent justices will be appropriately versed in contemporary issues.
Here is one way to consider this latter issue. It has been said that scientific and medical knowledge are doubling every seven years. If this progression continues through the year 2060, this implies—through the power of exponential growth—that technical knowledge will expand 128-fold in the next 50 years.
In other words, everything that we know today will represent less than 1 percent of what we will know in the future about such complex and esoteric fields as genomics, stem cell research, nanotechnology and, undoubtedly, a few other yet-to-be-discovered fields of science and medicine.
With no disrespect for the intelligence, fairness or judicial acuity of current or future justices is it really prudent for society to continue to grant lifetime tenure to nine individuals? How much better would it be to change the system so that society retains the benefits of political insulation yet also provides sufficient flexibility to ensure an equitable level of political, generational and intellectual representation on this country’s highest court?
Jack Uldrich is an author and a futurist. His latest book is Jump the Curve: 50 Strategies for Helping Your Company Deal with Emerging Technologies. (Adams Media, 2008).
Comment Thread (2 Responses)
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Interesting subject, Jack. I envision computerized governing becoming the preferred method of organizing humanity’s rules of law in the future.
Although this may seem a bit scary to some, by the time our machines exponentially advance to, say, the 2030s, we will develop complete faith in automated systems; and governing decisions will prove more fair coming from machines than from emotional beings.
From the Supreme Courts down to Municipal Judges, we could; by mid-century or before; replace human-made decisions with silicon choices that would always include the exact correct balance between compassion and logic, without the interfering influences of human emotions.
Positive futurists see computerized governing as a natural step in humanity’s efforts to achieve Kardashev Type I Civilization status by the beginning of the 22nd century.
Posted by: futuretalk May 30, 2008
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@Futuretalk: Excellent point.
Posted by: juldrich May 30, 2008
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