May 29 2008 / by juldrich
Category: Culture Year: Beyond Rating: 13 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).
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