The Convention of States and the Supreme Court was the topic recently on “Mark and the Millennials,” a weekly podcast covering issues facing conservative millennials and bridging the divide between the generations.
With all eyes on the Supreme Court and the upcoming hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Americans are focused on the high court more than ever before.
Host Mark Fisher of Calvert County, Maryland, met with millennials Christopher Hopkins and Adam Katora to explore which constitutional issues involving the Supreme Court could be addressed at a national Convention of States.
Also invited to present the COS point of view were COS Maryland State Director Stephen Patten and volunteer Matthew Rehberg.
The guests started by defining a COS and its overall mission: to convene a national convention based on Article V of the U.S. Constitution, educate the public on the Constitution, and get people involved in local government and the constitutional amendment process.
The COS mission is reflected in its call to action: reach, teach, activate.
“So many people don’t understand their Constitution and don’t know their own rights,” Patten said. This ignorance, along with deliberate misinterpretation of the Constitution by politicians, is fueling much of the partisan animosity now seen throughout the nation.
Fisher agreed, noting, “COS is one of the largest groups that is trying to remind people of the importance of the Constitution. It could serve as the educator of what the Constitution actually says and why.”
A Question of Timing
Timing is one of the major issues swirling around Barrett’s recent nomination to the high court. The COS position is that the controversy can be avoided altogether if reasonable limits are imposed on Supreme Court justices.
Although Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg could have stepped down during the Obama administration when she was diagnosed with cancer, she wanted the first woman president (presumably Hillary Clinton) to appoint her replacement.
With Clinton’s loss in 2016, Ginsburg missed the opportunity to pick her successor. This gave President Trump the opportunity to nominate Ginsburg’s replacement shortly after her death, within just a few months of an upcoming presidential election.
“This constitutional crisis could have been alleviated by a term limit amendment for Supreme Court justices,” Rehberg contends, and such an amendment could result from a Convention of States.
Show Them The Door
“If a Convention of States is called and term limits become a topic of conversation, what we’re going to be debating at that point is when do we start rolling out the current [Supreme Court] judges,” Patten said.
A timeline agreeable to both parties would have to be worked out, which would be the subject of considerable partisan controversy. Nevertheless, it would be worth the effort.
“I don’t see a downside to putting term limits on the judiciary,” Patten said.
Rehberg concurs, and noted that when the Founders wrote the Constitution, “they never thought there would be career politicians.”
Life spans were shorter in the 1700s and everyone had a real job. This meant that no one could afford to stay away from their farm or trade for extended periods. A career politician was not something envisioned by the Founders.
Likewise, when the Founders specified a life term for Supreme Court Justices, the expectation at the time was that few would live long enough to serve 30 years or more on the bench.
In Congress today, however, there are senators and representatives from both sides of the aisle that have served more than 25 years, and in one case almost 50 years—half a century.
William O. Douglas--the longest-serving Supreme Court Justice--served 36 years. The term limits proposed by a Convention of States could apply not only to Congressmen, Senators, and Supreme Court Justices, but also to federal bureaucrats. This would help rein in the power of the unelected administrative state.
Without term limits, unelected bureaucrats are able to draft rules and regulations for decades without representative approval from the people.
“Rulemaking is lawmaking,“ Fisher notes.
Fisher recalls that as a member of the Maryland legislature, he was “shocked at how immense the bureaucracy is at the state level. It took me a solid seven to eight years just to learn how that bureaucracy worked. It literally is a full time job, because it is so complex.”
And, as he correctly points out, “it’s exponentially worse on a federal level.”
To access a video of the episode, click HERE.
To access an audio podcast of the episode, click HERE.
For more information about a Convention of States, click HERE.
