Supreme Court Term Limits: Rethinking Life Tenure on a Divided Court

As high levels of partisan polarization and decreasing public trust have come to characterize the American political landscape, the Supreme Court has also become increasingly controversial, with Americans’ views of its legitimacy starkly divided along ideological lines. At the same time, Justices today live far longer – and thus serve far longer – than the Framers are likely to have imagined, raising the stakes of the confirmation process as new nominations to the Court become rarer and more consequential.

In this context, increasing numbers of experts and ordinary Americans are now calling for limited terms for Supreme Court Justices. But how would this reform work? Would it be constitutional? And how would it impact the Court, the Senate, and our nation?