One of the hottest governmental topics right now is Supreme Court reform. The Biden administration has made it an official point of focus in its final months, a sort of rubber stamp to the years of discussion happening in more progressive circles—itself a response to how the previous three appointments to the heads of the judicial branch were held up, then appointed in less-than-forthright circumstances. Some say expand, some say term limits. Why not elections?

I’m not talking about elections by the populace. We already have mechanisms for that, in electing individuals to fill the other two branches of government. Having one branch not be beholden whatsoever to the commons has its merits, and while I agree that it’s time for a change, that’s not the way forward. Instead, I envision a sort of ‘reverse election’ system with tenure on the court lasting for some years (say, 12) before their election is up.

It’d also be more accurate to call it a ‘reappointment process,’ as it’d be in effect a repeat of the initial hearings they went through during their initial appointment to the bench. Each justice would be held to account for their previous 12-year term in a series of structured hearings, able to defend their record and provide answers to a flurry of questions that would no doubt be provided by members of Congress. In the end, each chamber—the House and the Senate—would hold a simple majority vote to approve or deny the justice another 12-year term in the Court. If the chambers are in agreement, the vote passes regardless of the executive branch’s decision. If there is a split between the two houses, then the executive branch is the deciding vote.

I’ve only done cursory research on the hurdles to this option (beyond actually enacting any reforms whatsoever) and make no claims at being a legal scholar. With that said, the most prominent threat to this idea is Marbury v. Madison, an 1803 ruling that established judicial review. This in essence gives the Supreme Court the power to strike down any law or statute that is at odds with the US Constitution; effectively, the Supreme Court can reject anything short of an amendment to the US Constitution itself. This isn’t necessarily a challenge unique to these proposed judicial reappointments; it just means that it’s a political impossibility in the current state of US politics.

The more abstract consequences of this particular reform is that it would effectively kill the notion of a nonpartisan Supreme Court—not just the ideal of it, but the possibility of it ever becoming a reality. I think that’s not only a prudent decision, but a necessary one. We live in a partisan society, and even if we can defuse the powder keg that is our polarized society, politics will never be the issues-based ideal some of us long for. It won’t ever reach that point because bad actors will always seek to find a shortcut, an easy solution, some trick to win more votes. Even right now, one of the most effective messaging strategies against Trump is the barest form of style over substance: ‘weird.’

Don’t get me wrong, it’s genius. It’s simple, straightforward, clean and it works. But this is the world we live in and will live in for the foreseeable future, so I see little merit in futilely striving for an apolitical ideal that arguably has never been reached, and has only become more distant as time marches on. If our Supreme Court is to be partisan, then we should make it as vulnerable as our partisan branches of government, and at the very least have a more accessible tool to rein in their worst excesses.

I picked 12-year terms intentionally; this is longer than any administration can be, and long enough so that the only faces present at more than one judicial appointment/reappointment are those whose constituents have enough confidence in to keep sending them back. It’s not perfect, for every Bernie Sanders there’s a Jim Jordan. Perfect’s impossible, what matters is if it is better, and if everyone’s grumbling about it, but not mass-buying handkerchiefs and cheap liquor.

This type of reform isn’t something I’ve seen discussed before. Perhaps because I’ve missed an article, or because the notion of allowing for partisan hackery to infest court appointments more than they already do is a thought that physically sickens a majority of people, myself included. But if we have an opportunity to make real changes to the judicial branch, we should opt for ones that stand the test of time, partisanship and outright manipulation. The past decade has been the harshest test yet for the levers of government, but they have held up—and may actually get a reprieve in November. They need improvement, improvement that’s the result of discussion both heated with passion and articulated with knowledge by minds far greater than I. Though I think it’s just as important for all of us to ask questions and contemplate what better options might be, so fast talking ne’er-do-wells in politics can’t fool the electorate—once again very much including myself—any more than they already have.