The federal courts are full of judges who could retire but won’t. Little can be done about it.
www.nbcnews.com
Democrats were able to get President Joe Biden to step aside after a pressure campaign. But it’s much more difficult to force out a federal judge.

Democrats were able to get President Joe Biden to step aside after a pressure campaign. But it’s much more difficult to force out a federal judge.

At the age of 97, Judge Pauline Newman is the oldest full-time federal judge on the bench, but despite concerns about her ability to do the job, her colleagues are struggling to get rid of her.

…

When Democrats decided after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance that he was no longer fit to serve at the top of the ticket, a multifaceted pressure campaign was able to convince him to step aside.

But federal judges, as well as Supreme Court justices, have lifetime appointments and there is no easy process for easing them aside.

With people generally living longer, a lifetime appointment can now last many decades. The average age of a federal judge is 69, according to a recent study, and there is no clean way to force someone to step down.

  • Riskable@programming.devEnglish
    631·
    2 months ago

    We need a maximum age for all government positions in the US. The science says at around 70 is when humans start losing their mental faculties (on average).

    It’s not just about that though: The government shouldn’t be run by old people! And by, “old” I mean over 70. That way there’s no ambiguity.

    • restingboredface@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      19·
      2 months ago

      It think it might work better to do a maximum length of service. Will generally have the same effect but should make it easier to keep from having a huge number of people rotate out at once, which would be pretty disruptive.

    • teft@lemmy.world
      71·
      2 months ago

      Make it a maximum age that increases with life expectancy. Want to remain longer in government? Work to increase the average life expectancy of the entire populace.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
        25·
        2 months ago

        Keeping people alive longer doesn’t necessarily mean they stay capable of doing their jobs longer. It should be a fixed age that’s only changed if there’s a breakthrough in preventing cognitive decline.

        • teft@lemmy.world
          8·
          2 months ago

          I would say they should be tested for mental acuity but they would just game the system somehow.

          • Feathercrown@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            2 months ago

            This is the same reason why eg. voting tests are a bad idea. A test is complicated enough to be meddled with.

        • lennybird@lemmy.worldEnglish
          93·
          2 months ago

          35 is the minimum age to be President. 17 years from being an adult. So perhaps go 17 years below the median life expectancy, somewhere around 60?

          • Hellinabucket@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            2 months ago

            Honestly that’s the problems. The median life expectancy is in the upper 70s. Once you factor in having all the benefits of the USA health care system but none of the cost, it gets even higher. The average for 1787 was in the upper 30s.

            The concept of a judge in their 90s was as outlandish as the concept of 35 million people living in California.

          • Feathercrown@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            2 months ago

            That’s neatly symmetrical, but I don’t see an objective reason to have it be that way. Symmetry for symmetry’s sake isn’t by default better than anything else.

            • lennybird@lemmy.worldEnglish
              25·
              2 months ago
              • Rhetorically, it helps make the case to any naysayers who’ve enabled an age-minimum but decry an age-maximum is wrong.
              • It effectively achieves the same result of tying the age-limit to retirement age without giving legislators the incentive to simply raise retirement age.
              • It will always float significantly below the median life-expectancy, which even if life-expectancy overall improves marginally by a couple of years (in itself a good thing of course), it still gives a buffer to the point where cognition begins to increasingly wane.

              Realistically I’d be fine with a final term beginning at 65 and ending at 69.

          • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
            19·
            2 months ago

            Honestly, 35 is too young to be president. 40 to 60 is probably the sweet spot. Make the upper limit 65 or 70 (but start negotiating at 60).

            • lennybird@lemmy.worldEnglish
              102·
              2 months ago

              You think? I don’t think 35 is too young. In fact, we don’t know because we’ve never tried. JFK was youngest at 43 and considered one of the best. Mid thirties is peak mental and physical health with enough time to foster education and experience in my view.

              For instance, if AOC became president after 35, she’d be fantastic independent of how slow the rest of the geriatrics around her hold her back.

              Ultimately if you can go to war, you should be able to run for office. Age maxes make more sense for several reasons than age minimums.

              • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
                11·
                2 months ago

                JFK is not considered one of the best. He didn’t even have a full term, so there’s no way to know. People liked him because he was young and handsome and died that way.

                He started the Vietnam War. His only real test was the Cuban Missile Crisis. He did adopt Keynesianism economic policies (over more classical policies) and proposed the bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Those are all important, but he honestly wasn’t in office long enough to do much.

                And besides, like you said he was 43, not 35. AOC would not be able to do anything because she doesn’t have the relationships yet. Good presidents don’t come from the House of Representatives. They come from the Senate (JFK, Obama), Governors (FDR), or Vice Presidents (Harris).

                • lennybird@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  63·
                  2 months ago

                  https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?page=overall

                  Meanwhile JFK’s lowest approval-rating was 56%, which was the highest floor since being recorded.

                  By all accounts, he is definitely considered one of the best. Perhaps not to you, but objectively, yes… One of the best, most popular Presidents in history.

                  43 shows the trend; similarly with Obama. When we trend toward lower ages, they tend to be extremely popular and historically revered Presidents. Besides, we ultimately cannot say it doesn’t work until we actually try it.

                  Who said she doesn’t have “relationships”? What Relationships, exactly? Biden had plenty of relationships and we had to give him the boot. Senate versus House, it makes no difference on the fundamental character of the individual. It’s weird to think you suddenly utilized JFK as a positive example and then Harris who has yet to prove herself (while simultaneously saying we can’t use JFK… because he didn’t finish a term and yet you’re using Harris who hasn’t had a term to begin with…?)

      • Hannes@feddit.org
        3·
        2 months ago

        There was a proposal by a satirical party a couple of years ago about limiting voting for elderly by the same amount of years as it takes for people to become eligible to vote.

      • Riskable@programming.devEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        That’s not really a good idea… Just because life expectancy could go up doesn’t mean that a person’s cognitive function will remain the same if they live longer.

        A senator could have the mental capacity of a toddler at 110 even if the life expectancy at the time were 150.

        Even if we have super geniuses at 150 we should still be giving control of the government to people under 70. Let the “young” run the country.

    • LANIK2000@lemmy.world
      5·
      2 months ago

      Just impose mandatory annual fitness tests after the retirement age. No clue how it’s in America, but here that’s how it works with driver’s licenses (tho it’s not annual, but every 2 years). I mean most jobs require some fitness test, so why not positions is power? (rhetorical question, it answers it self)

  • njm1314@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 months ago

    Well I mean yeah they could, but I think most of them know that if they do their seat will remain vacant because Congress will keep blocking new appointments.