No. of Recommendations: 0
Age should not determine who is nominated, but it is a major consideration with lifetime appointments. SCOTUS needs term limits. Nominating someone who is 5 years younger could give that person 5 more years on SCOTUS. For such critical final review roles, age of the candidate should not be a consideration. Instead, retirements have to be planned around who happens to be POTUS. No other major country does it this way. The bad recent decisions that have flimsy legal basis show that a change is needed.
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Justice Breyer's retirement highlights what's wrong with the Supreme Court, January 27, 2022
"The over-concentration of power in a small group of people makes their particular points of view have an extraordinary effect upon our country."
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/justice-breyer-s-retir...
Term Limits for the Supreme Court: Life Tenure Reconsidered, May 26, 2006
“the American system of life tenure for Supreme Court Justices have been rejected by all other major democratic nations in setting up their highest constitutional courts... the average tenure of a Supreme Court Justice from 1789 through 1970 was 14.9 years, for those Justices who have retired since 1970, the average tenure has jumped to 26.1 years."
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=701121
Supreme Court Nominations https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/SupremeCourtN...
Nominee Nominated Vote Confirmed years on SCOTUS Date of Birth age now age when nominated
Barrett, Amy Coney 29-Sep-20 52-48 No. 224 26-Oct-20 1 28-Jan-72 50 48
Kavanaugh, Brett 10-Jul-18 50-48 No. 223 6-Oct-18 3 12-Feb-65 56 53
Gorsuch, Neil M. 1-Feb-17 54-45 No. 111 7-Apr-17 4 29-Aug-67 54 49
Kagan, Elena 10-May-10 63-37 No. 229 5-Aug-10 11 28-Apr-60 61 50
Sotomayor, Sonia 1-Jun-09 68-31 No. 262 6-Aug-09 12 25-Jun-54 67 54
Alito, Samuel A., Jr. 10-Nov-05 58-42 No. 2 31-Jan-06 16 1-Apr-50 71 55
Roberts, John G., Jr.1 6-Sep-05 78-22 No. 245 29-Sep-05 16 27-Jan-55 67 50
Breyer, Stephen G. 17-May-94 87-9 No. 242 29-Jul-94 27 15-Aug-38 83 55
Thomas, Clarence 8-Jul-91 52-48 No. 220 15-Oct-91 30 23-Jun-48 73 43
