Opinion | Why Supreme Court Justices Need Term Limits - The New York Times

Opinion | Why Supreme Court Justices Need Term Limits - The New York Times

By Rosalind Dixon

Dr. Dixon is a law professor and testified before the Supreme Court Commission in July 2021.

The Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court recently issued its final report, calling for a range of procedural changes to how the court operates — most notably, the introduction of term limits for the justices. It pointed to 18-year terms as the leading model for such change. Ideally, it suggested, the states would ratify a constitutional amendment, but some of the commissioners believed this could also be attempted through an act of Congress.

Other dissenting members of the commission think that term limits do not go far enough to curb an institution they view as hyperpartisan and as having lost public trust (the court’s approval rating has plummeted, according to Gallup, to its lowest point since 2000, when the poll began). They suggested that what was needed was an increase in the size of the court — to rebalance it in a more bipartisan direction.

More is needed to address the court’s current composition and approach — not by expanding the size of the court but through even more powerful, that is, shorter, term limits.

Eighteen years is too long to address the crisis in Supreme Court functioning and legitimacy. We need term limits that start to bite much sooner — after 12 years.