How Bernie Sanders Would Destroy the Supreme Court: ‘Rotating’ Justices

Thomas Jipping

Law,

Not a good idea. 

Efforts to turn judges from impartial umpires into political operatives confirm the axiom that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

The Declaration of Independence lists actions by King George III that justified separating from Great Britain. The king, for example, had “made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.”

America’s Founders responded with constitutional guarantees of judicial service during “good Behaviour” and prohibiting Congress from diminishing their compensation.

Knowing the dangers of political leaders trying to manipulate the judiciary, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the “complete independence of the courts of justice” is “peculiarly essential” in our system of government.

The oath of judicial office required by federal law requires judges to “administer justice without respect of persons” and to “impartially discharge” their judicial duties.

On June 27, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., promised that he would “never appoint any, nominate any justice to the Supreme Court unless that justice is 100% clear he or she will defend Roe. v. Wade.”

In other words, justices like these would not be able to do what their oath of judicial office requires.

Such ideological litmus tests, extracting advance commitments about deciding future cases, are not new but they are increasingly common, especially on the left.

In 1993, when Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she said her rule was to give “no hints, no forecasts, no previews.” Doing so, she explained, “would display disdain for the entire judicial process.”

Sanders continued, saying, “I do not believe in packing the court.” But he also said:

I do believe that constitutionally we have the power to rotate judges to other courts. And that brings in new blood into the Supreme Court and a majority, I hope, that will understand that a woman has the right to control her own body and the corporations cannot run the United States of America.