The Pros by Fiona Fu’25:
After the Supreme Court’s June 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade, a Gallup study showed American confidence in the Court sank to a historic low. This illustrates that the Supreme Court is out of touch with the American public and that our nation’s democratic foundations are beginning to crumble.
In a functioning democracy, the constituency believes that those in office will act for the public’s will and best interests. When that faith begins to waver, the legitimacy of this system is undermined. The numbers we see on the confidence polls are a glaring sign that there is a need for change, and implementing staggered 18-year term limits would resolve many of these misgivings.
No other country in the world gives its most senior judges indefinite terms. Even within the United States, all but one state have implemented fixed terms or mandatory retirement in their courts. The lengthy terms allow for the accumulation of political power, as demonstrated in Justice Clarence Thomas’s scandalous decades-long scheme of accepting “donations” from a Republican billionaire.
While Congress and the Senate write and pass laws under red and blue banners, the judicial branch of government, particularly the Supreme Court, is supposed to be non-partisan in interpreting the Constitution. Unfortunately, life-long tenure has made the nominations and retirements of Supreme Court justices into a political circus, compromising any semblance of impartiality. The desire to hold and maintain influence within the Court explains the 6-3 conservative lean, a ratio that does not accurately represent the demographics of the American public.
Presidents are incentivized to find the youngest, most ideologically-aligned nominees to shift the Supreme Court’s rulings in a more party-favored direction. Similarly, justices make sure to time their retirements in line with presidents who match their political beliefs to guarantee that a like-minded justice will take their place.
Hypocrisy in who gets to nominate new justices also exposes how the Supreme Court itself is politically manipulated. When Justice Antonin Scalia passed away in February 2016, the Republican-led Senate blocked President Obama’s nominee on the grounds that a court vacancy nine months before the election should be filled by the new president. However, when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away only a month and a half before election day in 2020, then-Senate Majority Leader and Republican Mitch McConnell allowed former President Donald Trump P’00 to appoint his third Supreme Court Justice.
Term limits ensure that this type of political maneuvering cannot occur. With 18-year terms staggered two years apart, a new justice would be appointed every two years, allowing the regular input of someone less shielded from standard judicial proceedings and scrutiny. The predictable regularity of new appointments would ensure that political spectacles like that of Trump’s third nomination will never happen.
Instead, each president leaves an equitable imprint on the Supreme Court proportional to the years they serve in office, and any court majority has an expiration date. Bias and personal political philosophy might be an inevitable part of the Supreme Court, but so much of its integrity has been sacrificed both in terms of its own ethical standards and of partisan exploitation. Only by implementing term limits can we simultaneously protect the reputation the Court has built over centuries and ensure that the institution is still in touch with whom it serves.
The Cons by Michael Korvyakov’23:
For 250 years of U.S. history, the Supreme Court has been a stalwart institution that stands against irrational action done democratically. While the executive and legislative branches decide policy on a majority-rules basis, the Supreme Court was meant to be above this legal limitation. The nine justices who serve for life ensure that the other two branches don’t violate the Constitution, even when democracy demands it.
However, recent frustration with the political balance of the Supreme Court has led to many calling for structural changes to the court’s function. A frequently cited change is the implementation of Supreme Court term limits. Advocates of this policy argue that it would make the Court align more with the American people since they’d frequently be cycled through. While this may be true, it ignores the fact that the Supreme Court was always meant to be separate from the American people and the other two branches of government.
Suppose we implement the 18-year Supreme Court term limits to ensure that one of the nine justices retires every two years. Each two-term president would have the power to change four justices — that’s half of the court, which would almost certainly have an impact on the political balance. This practice is dangerous because if one party controls both the presidency and the legislature, the president is able to facilitate the process of passing unconstitutional laws in the interests of their party.
The power of the Supreme Court lies in its ability to decide constitutionality without being swayed by the other branches. Under this new system, the Supreme Court compromises its judicial independence, thus transforming into a political weapon for the presidency.
The other portrayal of Supreme Court term limits is to decrease partisan disruption on the court. Following the status quo, justices often retire when they expect to be replaced by someone of their own party to ensure that they’re replaced with an ideologically-similar pick. While it’s true that these timed resignations would cease to exist with Supreme Court term limits, if every president is aware that they have the power to nominate four justices in a full presidential term, they will inevitably campaign with publicized judicial picks.
At the moment, there is a consensus that the Supreme Court makes laws somewhat independently from the other two branches. Because of this, presidents don’t frequently cite who they will nominate. However, term limits will inextricably bind the Supreme Court to the executive branch, neglecting judicial independence. This policy directly opposes Alexander Hamilton’s argument in Federalist No. 78 — life tenures provide the judiciary with firmness and independence.
Finally, Supreme Court term limits increase partisan disruption by encouraging a constant flip in the stance of the Court. Suzanna Sherry, an author and political analyst, used computer simulations to predict how the Supreme Court might have treated abortion rights if 18-year term limits had been in effect at the time Roe v. Wade was decided. She concluded that the most likely result is that Roe would have been overruled in the 1980s, reinstated in the 2000s, and overruled again during former President Donald Trump P’00’s first term. Our common law system relies on precedent, and precedent stops being a powerful aspect of the Court if term limits are in place.
Those who argue in favor of Supreme Court term limits cite that it would encourage the Supreme Court to make more democratic decisions and decrease partisan disruption. The latter isn’t true because it connects the court system to presidential and legislative election. And the former isn’t good, because the democratization of the Court prevents it from putting the Constitution above the political whims of the time.
