Would term limits help Supreme Court?
Public discussion of that commission has dwelt on whether it would push to expand the Supreme Court so that Democrats could tilt it back to the left with new appointees. But the commission also is supposed to study term limits. That idea may seem more promising than increasing the number of justices, something that Congress overwhelmingly rejected 80 years ago and that remains unpopular. Supreme Court reform comes with a trade-off, though: The more sense a proposal makes as a long-term improvement in the structure of the federal government, the less it addresses progressives current unhappiness. Theres a version of term limits that adheres to the Constitution, has a little bit of political plausibility, and could lower the stakes of individual nominations. Its just not the version that would give progressives the political victory they want. Article III of the Constitution says that federal judges shall hold their Offices during good Behavior. That language would seem to preclude 18-year terms. Advocates of term limits have found a clever way around that obstacle: They would create a new kind of federal judgeship that involved 18 years of service on the Supreme Court and additional years on lower courts. Life tenure in this hybrid judgeship would not mean life tenure on the Supreme Court.