Former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said Sunday that he would back age limits for justices, claiming the controversial policy would have helped his own decision-making about his retirement in 2022.

“I don’t think that’s harmful,” he said of Supreme Court terms in an NBC “Meet the Press” interview with Kristen Welker on Sunday. “If you had long terms, for example, they’d have to be long. Why long? Because I don’t think you want someone who’s appointed to the Supreme Court to be thinking about his next job.”

“And so, a 20-year term? I don’t know, 18? Long term? Fine. Fine,” he said. “I don’t think that would be harmful. I think it would have helped, in my case. It would have avoided, for me, going through difficult decisions when you retire. What’s the right time? And so, that would be okay.”

  • @hydrashok
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    753 months ago

    Should be mandatory retirement for all branches when they hit 65. There’s no reason we should have a bunch of 70 and 80 year olds in there stalling everything and just holding onto power until they die.

    And a mandatory ban for five years on their ability to have a lobbying job within any industry, direct or indirect, to anything they oversaw while in government.

    • @[email protected]
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      283 months ago

      Look at fucking Feinstein being rolled around and literally forgetting she had even been in the hospital yet STILL FUCKING VOTING ON BILLS

        • @[email protected]
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          193 months ago

          I don’t think the poster was suggesting it was still happening now. I read it as she was still voting on bills while being rolled around and having no awareness of her surroundings or recent history.

          Multiple sources tell Rolling Stone that in recent years Feinstein’s office had an on-call system — unbeknownst to Feinstein herself — to prevent the senator from ever walking around the Capitol on her own. At any given moment there was a staff member ready to jump up and stroll alongside the senator if she left her office, worried about what she’d say to reporters if left unsupervised. The system has been in place for years.

          Feinstein once notably seemed to forget she had relinquished her role as third in line to the presidency. As the longest-serving member of the Senate majority, she would traditionally serve as president pro tempore, behind only the vice president and speaker of the House in the line of succession. Feinstein announced last October via a written statement she would voluntarily give up the title. But when asked about it three weeks later she told a reporter she was still considering what to do. The staffer quickly corrected the Senator.

    • Jesus
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      173 months ago

      I’d be down with a cut off at 70. I feel like it’s the folks over 75 that have been the biggest causes for concern over the past couple decades. Moreover, I get a little uncomfortable with people over the retirement age not being able to elect any peers to represent them.

    • @[email protected]
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      143 months ago

      Need to do that soon. Eventually, people will be able to live to be 100, 150, forever… If we don’t put hard limits in now, we’ll have eternal senators.

      • @[email protected]
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        163 months ago

        Eventually, people **WITH MONEY will be able to live to be 100, 150, forever…

        FTFY, and that’s the more scary part.

    • @[email protected]
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      3 months ago

      Mandatory retirement when social security and Medicare kick in +a few. That’s when the govt has already decided that people should be retired.

      • @[email protected]
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        33 months ago

        I mean, that’s a great way to get politicians to increase the retirement age so they can hold onto power by the shriveled tips of their liver spotted crypt keeper fingers.

    • @[email protected]
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      03 months ago

      My grandpa is a classical everything-phobic NRA republican, but he has one idea that has elements I kinda like. He thinks the president should be chosen at random from among voting age adults, and that when they’re done with their term they should be paid handsomely by the government and be barred from lobbying jobs for life. I’d be terrified of the kinds of people that could hand executive orders and nuclear launch codes to, but i agree with you and him that retiring politicians shouldn’t be allowed to pivot straight into lobbying and other private sector sources of political influence. I kinda think the ban should be longer than five years, if not for life, but idk there could be some good in lifting it after a time that I’m not thinking of