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The whole point of no term limits on supreme judges is so they remove the incentive of selling out to interest groups to maximize their income or social interested during their tenure. Unless there's evidence that long standing judges do in fact profit more than, say, congressmen in the nature of their duration as supreme court judges, #2 is pure culture war and could end up backfiring spectacularly.
#1 is from what I've read on this from here and other places, is a way to push things through this through disingenuous reading of the ruling and ignores the nuance of what the judges put forth. The only reason to put this into the reform is to go after an ex-president legally, and if it doesn't go through is a way to blame "those wiley Republicans are preventing the rule of law, what power hungry hypocrites!" It's pure dog-whistle for Democrats.
#3 is too open ended and essentially is a way to perpetuate those in power by hemming in the presidency. The liked president who toes the party line will get a pass, the unliked or controversial president will be hamstrung by 'morality' and 'ethics' which will mean whatever people want it to mean at the time.
That didn't seem to workout in the Thomas case, given all the gifts he received. And, his claims of being underpaid are another reason your statement seems false.
Those are a partisan hit job, and badly misrepresent things.
In any case, it would be obvious if you read Thomas that he's not being swayed. He's clearly one of the most principled justices, in that he cares most about what the Constitution actually says. See, for a recent example, his Netchoice opinion, where he weakens his own agreement with Alito's pseudo-dissent by saying he thinks Zauderer might have been wrongly decided. If that's not the impression you get of him, your ratio of reading slander:his opinions might be out of whack.
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You would have to argue that the gifts he received was quid pro quo, and that multiple justices have done it in recent history, as one dissenting ruling doesn't seem to have an impact on the supreme court. Democrats have been attacking Thomas for 30 years, so him hobnobbing with wealthy friends hardly constitutes a new attack on his character. Who doesn't bellyache about getting paid enough?
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I would imagine that spending 18 years, on top of having enough of a legal career to merit consideration as a SC justice (they would probably return to older nominations because the lifetime incentive to nominate super young ones would disappear), would be a long enough span of time that by the time you're done on the SC, your career is basically done anyways. So 18 years is too short to worry about a revolving door, at the very least for this particular position (might not extend to senators).
In fact, if you look at historical data the median age range (50-54) already serves an average of 18.6 years. That means a nominee of that age is going to be 68-74 when they're done, which leaves not that much time for corrupt profit. Or even no time at all! Remember, that historical average time served on the bench is usually ended by, uh, literal death or often major illness. And the most common age group is actually 55-59, so the problem would be even less notable.
So basically your worry about selling out is ranges from a minimal worry to a non-issue, according to the data.
What's the point of instituting and codifying an 18 year term limit except to boot out outliers? It makes it seems it's at best a short-term political play to get the most longstanding conservative judge off the bench and refresh an old Democratic judge and is a purely partisan reform.
What's the point of amending the Constitution permanently? Uh, obviously to create permanent change? It's more weird that you consider an amendment to be a short-term strategy. At least when we're talking about the construction of the amendment itself.
In the medium to long term it seems pretty healthy for the system to institute an 18 year thing. As I mentioned in my other comment, the timeframe is already in line with the current average time on the bench (or even a little longer), and furthermore if we go farther back in history, due to shorter lifespans, the Founding Fathers already would have viewed modern bench duration as an aberration. Thus this change is not only a wise move for future systemic stability (for BOTH parties, since long-term most parties still only expect to win only a little more than half the time) but also perfectly in keeping with precedent and, more controversially but probably correctly, the Framers' intent.
While I agree that it's not good for justices to be serving at 100, the reforms would increase politicization compared to the status quo.
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