Fact Check: Examining the Case for Supreme Court Term Limits

The debate over Supreme Court reform has intensified with Representative Johnny Olszewski, D-Md., introducing a constitutional amendment that would fundamentally change the nature of the nation’s highest court by imposing 18-year term limits on justices.

Olszewski’s proposal, dubbed the Reform of Bench Eligibility Act (ROBE Act), aims to replace the current lifetime appointment system with a structure that would create regular turnover on the Supreme Court. According to the congressman’s office, the amendment would apply to current justices and include a transition process to implement the new system.

“Public faith in the court depends on its legitimacy as a fair and independent institution,” Olszewski said in a statement. His office noted that the proposal comes in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that they described as “effectively gutting the Voting Rights Act,” along with ethics controversies and what they characterized as increasingly political behavior by some justices.

The push for Supreme Court reform has gained significant backing from the Brennan Center for Justice, which recently published an analysis arguing that the Court faces a crisis of public confidence. The Center contends that the Supreme Court has become too powerful with insufficient accountability mechanisms, noting that the Court’s authority relies heavily on public trust since it lacks direct enforcement power.

At the heart of the Brennan Center’s recommendation is an 18-year active service term for justices. After completing this term, justices would transition to senior status, remaining federal judges but in a more limited capacity – such as hearing cases in lower courts or filling in during recusals or unexpected vacancies.

The reform advocates point to a significant shift in justices’ tenure over time. For nearly two centuries, Supreme Court justices served an average of about 15 years. However, since 1993, that average has nearly doubled to approximately 28 years. This extended service allows individual justices to shape American jurisprudence for generations on critical issues including voting rights, abortion, gun laws, campaign finance, and presidential power.

Proponents argue that implementing regular appointments – one every two years – could reduce the high-stakes nature of confirmation battles and introduce more predictability to the process. Public sentiment appears to favor such changes, with a 2024 Fox News poll finding that 78% of Americans support limiting Supreme Court justices to 18-year terms. The same poll revealed that the Court’s approval rating had dropped to a record low.

Despite public support, the proposal faces significant legal and political obstacles. Supreme Court justices currently hold lifetime appointments under Article III of the Constitution. While the Brennan Center suggests Congress could potentially enact 18-year active-service terms through statute if justices remained in senior status afterward, Olszewski’s approach through a constitutional amendment would require approval from two-thirds of both congressional chambers and ratification by three-fourths of the states.

Critics of term limits maintain that lifetime tenure serves a crucial purpose in protecting judicial independence. The current system, they argue, insulates justices from political pressure, public opinion swings, and potential retaliation from other branches of government. Some also caution that reform efforts often gain momentum when one political party is dissatisfied with the Court’s ideological composition.

The Brennan Center’s reform agenda extends beyond term limits to include five additional proposals: implementing a binding ethics code, restricting the Court’s use of its emergency “shadow docket,” creating a more efficient process for congressional responses to major Court rulings, reforming the confirmation process, and allowing cameras in the courtroom.

The debate ultimately centers on finding an appropriate balance: how to make the Supreme Court more accountable and transparent without compromising the judicial independence that the founding fathers intended to protect when designing the federal judiciary.