Pressuring Judges

Many years ago on road trips with my parents, I would see billboards along the highway reading “Save our Republic. Impeach Earl Warren.” They were put up by members of the John Birch Society who disliked some of the Warren court’s legal opinions and saw him as in league with or at least enabling communists in the United States. There was never any chance that Warren would be impeached, and it seems likely that many of the Birchers knew it. Probably the idea was to stir up hostility to the court and pressure it to take a different direction in its rulings.

This week Joe Biden announced proposals for term limits for justices on the supreme court. Since this would require a constitutional amendment, there is no chance that it will happen, and it is likely that even Biden knows it. Probably the idea is to stir up hostility to the court and pressure it to take a different direction in its rulings.

Making political threats against judges whose opinions one dislikes is a bad idea. There are good reasons the constitution established a judiciary independent of and equal to the legislative and executive branches of government. The Birchers were a bunch of cranks that few people took seriously. Biden is the president of the United States with many members of his party supporting his scheme. It is almost enough to make a person take the cynical view that Democrats and their public relations people in the traditional media might not be sincere in their bleating about saving democracy and preserving guardrails and restoring norms of political conduct, but only pretending for political advantage.