Term Limits II

 

So Long, Farewell

So long, farewell, au revoir, auf wiedersehen
I´d like to stay and taste my first champagne
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye
Goodbye!
I´m glad to go, I cannot tell a lie
I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly
The sun has gone to bed and so must I

Justice Thomas, you have already tasted Harlan Crow’s champagne!  

Knowing when to say goodbye is important. Too important to leave to an individual to choose when to say goodbye.  Any appointment as a constitutional officer, to serve as a representative of its sovereign, the people, should have a limit. Legislative officers serve a term of two years in the House and six years in the Senate. The chief executive, the President, serves a term of four years. The officers of his executive branch, serve at his pleasure, so they de facto serve terms of four years, and given that the president is limited to two terms, practically no more than eight years. It is only judicial officers who appear to serve for life. As constitutional officers they represent all of the people, including wards of the people, children. Children eventually become adults and are no longer wards. The federal voting age is 18 years (from the date of birth), so arguably the term limit for any constitutional officer, including  members of the judiciary, should be no more than 18 years or else the wards have no say in their selection.

So why did the adopters of the Constitution not include a term limit? Members of the judiciary are traditionally not appointed until they are in their 30s. Life expectancy in the United States at the time the Constitution was ratified was only 36 years. It thus seemed unnecessary to impose a term limit of 18 years when Nature would get there first. But in 2022, life expectancy at birth in the U.S. was 77.5 years. 18 years seemed like a life appointment in 1789, but 18 years is a reasonable regency to what should never have been a lifetime appointment.

This is not to say that an individual  could not be reappointed after completing their first 18-year term. While it is unlikely that a single individual would complete all of that second term, serve for a total of 36 years, a limit of two terms should be imposed, in case life expectancy makes another unanticipated uptick. Chief Executive officers are already limited to two terms of 4 years. It seems prudent that legislative officers should also be limited to 36 years. That means that Representatives of the House would be limited to 18 terms, Senators would be limited to 6 terms. and judicial officers would be limited to 2 terms.  By then, it should be clear that the party’s over.