1. United States
2. Tenn.
3. Letter

Reject the plan circulating among Virginia Democrats to manipulate judicial retirement ages and force out the Supreme Court justices who ruled against the new redistricting maps. Lowering the mandatory retirement age from 73 to 54 — specifically targeting Justice Stephen McCullough — to manufacture court vacancies and install sympathetic replacements is not a legal strategy. It's court-packing dressed up in constitutional language. Yes, Article VI, Section 9 gives the legislature authority to set retirement ages. That doesn't make this right. Justice Arthur Kelsey wrote the majority opinion knowing a Democrat-controlled General Assembly controls his reappointment. He signed his own judicial death warrant to rule honestly. Punishing judges for their decisions by rigging the bench destroys the independence that makes courts worth having in the first place. The "Republicans would do it" argument is a race to the bottom, not a governing philosophy. Voters who supported an independent redistricting commission did so because they were tired of exactly this kind of manipulation. Honor that. Kill this plan.