Senator Cruz’s proposal to amend the Constitution to allow for judicial-retention elections has gotten a fair amount of attention at NRO. George Will suggested that it is evidence that Cruz is “unhinged”; Jim Geraghty reported on the reaction from other conservatives and libertarians; and Andy McCarthy came to its defense.

I’m more on the Cruz-McCarthy than the Will side of this argument. I agree with the former that the federal judiciary has acquired too much power and that structural reforms that would reduce that power deserve consideration. This proposal, though, seems to me to combine a low likelihood of being implemented with a low likelihood of having the desired effect.

It would require amending the Constitution, which would mean establishing a very large and broad supermajority for the idea. If somehow we succeeded in getting the amendment ratified, though, how much difference would it make? Senator Cruz criticizes the Court for reading a right to same-sex marriage into the Constitution. Do we have any reason to think that Justice Kennedy and the other four justices behind that opinion would lose their seats over the issue if retention elections were possible? Or to think that the threat would have inhibited any of them from voting as they did? Wouldn’t retention elections be at least as likely to result in the defeat of justices who favored Citizens United?

I have my own longshot proposal: give new life to the congressional power to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts. (Has it already been a decade since Robert P. George and I wrote about it? Long enough, alas, that I can’t find a full version online.) Like retention elections, the exercise of this power would have its potential downsides. But it would target the problem of excessive judicial power more directly, and it would not require a constitutional amendment.