Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said Monday on MSNBC’s “Hallie Jackson Reports” that she supported term limits for Supreme Court justices.
Discussing the House and Senate Judiciary committees holding hearings on the Supreme Court’s shadow docket, Hirono said, “A lot of people don’t know what the shadow docket is. I think we’ll be hearing from scholars as to the abuse of the shadow docket by this Supreme Court because they’ve used the shadow docket to do the thing they just did, basically to overturn Roe v. Wade, 28 times in the Trump years and only four during the entire times of Bush and Obama. So there is in my view the abuse of power of the shadow docket and what’s going to happen probably is more calls for court reform.”
She continued, “We’re going to do everything we can to codify Roe v. Wade at the federal level but also at the state level because it’s the state legislators that are very busy, passing hundreds and hundreds of abortion limiting laws across the country and that is why people need to vote. They need to have legislators who are going to impose these kinds of draconian laws on women across the country, creating chaos, fear, chilling effect. We see what’s happening in Texas already.”
Hirono added, “Why should anyone have lifetime appointments to any job? Therefore as part of the hearing on the shadow docket, I think there will be calls for term limits on the Supreme Court. I would support that kind of debate and discussion. We need court reform. It could term limits by increasing the number of justices on the court. It definitely means applying ethical standards.”
Jackson asked, “You said you would support the debate and discussion on that. Would you support term limits itself?”
Hirono said, “Pretty much I would because, as I say, who gets a lifetime appointment or job security for anything? Why should the court be exempted? That’s been my view for a while. We should have a debate on it.”
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