William Rehnquist Quotes
Perhaps you should say there should be mandatory retirement even of members of the court, members of the federal judiciary. I'm sure there can be questions about whether one does as good work when you get into your - you know, I'm 67.
Rehnquist, William H. Interview by Brian Lamb. Booknotes, C-SPAN, 21 June 1992.
This was FDR’s plan to “pack” the Supreme Court as it was the older justices who were voting against him. Many justices have been very productive even into their 80s. Although Roosevelt was arguably the most popular president in history and was elected for 4 terms, he was rebuffed on this attempt to alter the system of checks and balances.
In America, the best attorneys have stayed in private practice where they could make much more money than government service or become professors and scholars of law. In either case, most have a track record that would make Senate confirmation difficult even if they wanted to be Federal Judges. A few like Abraham Lincoln went into politics. The Supreme Court is somewhat of an exception because of the power it wields, but even then many great attorneys have not been so inclined. Federal judges have usually been above average as attorneys, but not among the greatest.
William Hubbs Rehnquist was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States for 33 years, as an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and as Chief Justice from 1986 until his death in 2005. Considered a conservative, Rehnquist favored a conception of federalism that emphasized the Tenth Amendment's reservation of powers to the states. Under this view of federalism, the court, for the first time since the 1930s, struck down an act of Congress as exceeding its power under the Commerce Clause.
