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Mark Levin: Time for Supreme Court justice term limits [VIDEO]
Conservative talker Mark Levin echoed his disapproval Monday of last week’s Supreme Court decision on President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care legislation, questioning the suggestion that Chief Justice John Roberts was attempting to defer to Congress’ court on this issue and restating calls for terms limits for justices.
“That’s not the job of a judge to throw it here or throw it there or throw it anywhere,” Levin, author of “Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America,” said on Fox News Channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” “The fact of the matter is his decision can’t be thrown anywhere. His decision, apart from Obamacare, has perverted the Constitution and opened a gaping hole and further diminishes it. So, you can’t throw that to Congress to fix right now. That was his job and he failed on his job. And if we buy the argument he was throwing it to the political branches and so forth, he concocted, he rewrote the statute. He concocted an argument to do it. We don’t believe that justices should do that.”
Levin responded to host Neil Cavuto’s suggestion that Roberts could be too aware of the political environment and that is affecting his decisions. In his 2006 book “Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America,” Levin proposed term limits for justices as a fix for a court that is too influenced by politics.
“I think he reads the tea leaves, I think it turns out he’s extremely political — to my great chagrin — I think he reads the media,” Levin said. “I think the libs know that and the libs, like the mob, will be in for the next decision. This is just the first. They’re going to want more from him. This is why I argued six or seven years ago in ‘Men in Black’ — and I’m going to reintroduce this argument: term limits for justices. If justices want to be political, then they shouldn’t serve for life because the American people deserve better than this. And that’s the bottom line. Whatever Roberts thinks — whatever we call this, a tax, a punishment, a cucumber. The fact of the matter is we, the American people, deserve public officials — whether they’re elected or appointed to serve for life or for limited terms — who are go to uphold our institutions. And if not going to do it, there’s 312 million Americans — we’ll find some who can.”
Unneutral
July 3rd, 2012
Term limits for EVERYONE.
Sarthurk
July 3rd, 2012
Term Limits? Yeah me too! 16 years without any exit strategy really sucks. I got my pink slip last week, and I have no clue what to do. Seven years to retirement, and I’m FUCKED! Pardon my French….oh wait, screw the French!
Screw Barry too! I’m sure that Alec and Tom would be happy to do so.
Poonces
July 3rd, 2012
Not only should there be term limits for all appointed and elected officials, I also have a problem with people in their late 80′s (Lautenberg for one) having a congressional vote on issues they won’t personally have to live with for long.
Tim
July 3rd, 2012
Judges are simply politically connected lawyers.
Supreme Court judges connected at the bottom of the cesspool (highest levels of gov’t).
Why would anyone ever think otherwise?
Sorry to read that, Sarthurk.
scr_north
July 3rd, 2012
Here in Canada we have madatory retirement at age 75 for federally appointed judges (including the Supreme Court) and for Senators (ours are appointed, not elected). Members of Parliament (MP’s) don’t have a mandatory retirement and I suspect that’s because they are elected to office.
There should be some way to term limit a politician but my concern would be if upon entering their final term they essencialy put a “for sale” sign on their office door since they won’t have to answer to the voters (either selling themselves or ramming through some bogus legislation). Have to figure out some way to guard against that. Can you imagine what Charlie Rangel would do in a forced last term?
MADJACK
July 3rd, 2012
Bill Whittle’s newest video and IT IS GOOD!
http://www.youtube.com/embed/HYZVJoV0jC0?fs=1
FreeMan - Save Me Sarah
July 3rd, 2012
I like term limits in all political offices.
BUT
can you imagine who would be on this court by now if they had limits? Not that the outcome is much different, but think about this one before you limit them.
There should be a way to remove them if they do not uphold their sworn duty to the constitution and the rule of law.
reliapundit
July 3rd, 2012
Wouldn’t limiting the term of Justices on the SCOTUS make the POTUS and Senate more powerful and make them more likely to base decisions on politics rather than the Constitution?
Wasn’t the point of having life-terms to insulate Justices from temporary factional conflict, and would limiting their terms make them more likely to think of post-term effects of their decisions?
I think the answer to both questions is “yes”, but I could be wrong.
Unneutral
July 3rd, 2012
@reliapundit–As for SCOTUS, seems they already base decisions on politics.
Chuck U Farley
July 3rd, 2012
Levin’s got a great angle on this.
The Court will be set at 9 judges (The Constitution does not address how many there are to be) Supreme Court justices will have a 15 year term to be staggered so that a 4 year president will have 2 nominations, two term presidents will have 4 nominees.
He also says to repeal the 17th amendment and put the appointment of senators back to the state legislatures, so that the states will have a direct input into the federal legislature, as they once did. Two 6 year term limits max.
Representatives will also be set at 3 2-year limits.
…and allow the fossils now in to be grandfathered to avoid lawsuits.
Works for me.
Chuck U Farley
July 3rd, 2012
No, wait; I think he said reps get 6 2-year terms at a max of 12 years too.
Roscoe P. Soultrane
July 3rd, 2012
“The fact of the matter is we, the American people, deserve public officials — whether they’re elected or appointed to serve for life or for limited terms — who are go to uphold our institutions”
We may deserve them, but we aren’t going to get them. The elites don’t want to uphold any institutions beyond their own elevated positions. Huge blocs of voters don’t want to uphold anything, and are trying quite hard to tear it down.
When the elites and the rabble want the same thing, it’s going to come to pass.
Roscoe P. Soultrane
July 3rd, 2012
@FreeMan: “There should be a way to remove them if they do not uphold their sworn duty to the constitution and the rule of law.”
There are ways to do that. It just tends to be messy and upsets folks at their breakfasts.
FreeMan - Save Me Sarah
July 3rd, 2012
Bingo Roscoe – you first
Unneutral
July 3rd, 2012
You have to admit, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if the Constitution couldn’t be usurped.
reddecaesari
July 4th, 2012
my sister is convinced that roberts was blackmailed.
the guy went to an all boy catholic boarding school; said he preferred reciting shakespeare to sitting next to a silly blonde girl (in support of keeping it all boy); got married at 41; adopted two kids. she thinks someone has something on him. got photographs late at night with a note “these will go mainstream, change your vote”.
Did Justice Roberts commit treason?
July 7th, 2012
[...] Fox News’ Neil Cavuto asked Levin to comment on the Obamacare case, and specifically Chief Justice Roberts’ surprising decision. Levin took the opportunity to repeat his call for term limits for Supreme Court justices (FREE audio). [...]
DID JUSTICE ROBERTS COMMIT TREASON? | DailyDopeNews.com
July 7th, 2012
[...] Fox News’ Neil Cavuto asked Levin to comment on the Obamacare case, and specifically Chief Justice Roberts’ surprising decision. Levin took the opportunity to repeat his call for term limits for Supreme Court justices (FREE audio). [...]