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Originally posted by Captain
I like the first idea; of course, it would require that the constitution also set the size of the court. I believe some states have very lengthy terms like this, but am not sure how it works out.
I think the framers were very wary of setting too much detail about the court in stone. The Supreme Court was, after all, one of the bigger experiments in the new Republic. There are very few models for the Supreme Court, and some of the ideas, like lifetime appointments, were reforms people had been clamoring for over many years.
It might have been useful to have a mandatory "revisit" of the experiment after thirty or forty years, in which case it wouldn't surprise me at all to have seen a change like an 18 year term.
But then, they may well have had little idea of just how reluctant we'd all be to change the document.
I'm not sure the second idea belongs in the Constitution. Perhaps just a clause enabling the Court to develop its own mechanism for dealing with recusals and absences.
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I like the first idea quite a bit. I think ensuring that each president regularly got to appoint someone would help depoliticize the appointment process somewhat.
Agree with the Cptn that the second idea doesn't belong in the Constitution -- as I recall, the only court mentioned in the Constitution is the Supreme Court, and the other federal courts are created by Congress.
