Career politician calls for term-limiting Supreme Court justices

To say that President Joe Biden is an unpopular president would be a gross understatement.

After polling similarly to former President Jimmy Carter at this point in his presidency, Biden announced that he will not seek a second term, but that doesn’t mean Americans will be spared from his bad ideas. He sadly has more.

Biden recently rolled out a plan to reform the U.S. Supreme Court, which includes a proposal to institute Supreme Court term limits. If he gets his way, justices will no longer enjoy lifetime appointments. Rather they will be limited to 18-year terms, which is a problematic notion that runs contrary to our founding fathers’ vision.

Biden’s plan isn’t particularly novel, but the fact that he is calling for term limits is hypocrisy in action. Biden has been in some public office for nearly 48 years—36 of which he served consecutively in the Senate beginning in 1972. No-so-surprisingly, he’s mum on limiting time in the Senate; he only wants to curtail justices’ time on the bench.

“Term limits would help ensure that the court’s membership changes with some regularity,” Biden explained in a Washington Post op-ed. “That would make timing for court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary. It would reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come.”

He’s not alone. Others have endorsed such a plan, but their rationale is pretty bad and revolves around ensuring the court “better reflects prevailing public values” and “modern life.” That sounds nice and all, but the Supreme Court’s role isn’t to reflect public values or modern life. Its most important job is to rule on the constitutionality of government actions.

The founding fathers were also quite clear that they intended for Supreme Court justices to enjoy lifetime appointments. “The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior,” reads the U.S. Constitution.

“The phrase ‘good behavior’ obviously implies that there is no limit on how long a Justice may serve, once approved for serving on the court,” according to the Constitution Center. This doesn’t mean that justices cannot be removed. If they commit certain crimes, Congress can impeach and remove them, but otherwise, they can remain on the bench for as long as they like or until they die. The case can be made that some stayed longer than was advisable, but that was their choice and the framers empowered them to make it.

Despite the founders’ obvious intentions, Republicans have previously supported Supreme Court term limits. Republicans Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry and others voiced support for them in 2015 after the court had failed to overturn Obamacare and Roe v. Wade. Their efforts were not fruitful. Now the tables have turned. Biden—a Democrat—is attempting to reform the system, which is more than a little suspicious. Efforts to limit justices’ tenures haven’t enjoyed much momentum, until the high court seemed to pivot to the political Right. Now this proposal is suddenly en-vogue among the Left, but they should be careful what they wish for.

Such a reform would transform presidential elections, and not for the better. Campaign season has long been contentious, but it seems to be getting much worse. We are regularly told that each presidential election “is the most important election of our lifetime,” and we endure constant campaign attack ads and mudslinging. Meanwhile, society is becoming increasingly polarized politically, even leading to violence. If justices’ terms were limited, then that would up the stakes even more for each presidential election. I think we can do without that, and there are practical reasons why the Right and Left ought to oppose Supreme Court term limits.

“A Supreme Court that welcomes a new justice every two years, and turns over entirely over the course of every 18 years, could wreak havoc on doctrinal stability,” reads a Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publication. “Under the current constitutionally mandated system of life tenure, the court changes slowly [meaning] doctrine changes slowly and incrementally. A constantly changing court, on the other hand, might make sudden and radical changes in doctrine.”

The silver lining is that Biden’s proposal has almost no chance whatsoever of becoming law anytime in the near future. He is a lame duck, and there isn’t enough consensus to support the package. He should be thankful for that. Biden’s tenure as president has been underwhelming in many respects, and while history will judge his presidency, ratifying poor policy as his departure looms won’t not help his legacy.