TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Kate Prince on Nov 19, 2021

The Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States says its studies show “considerable, bipartisan support” of term limits for the high court, the ABA Journal reports. President Joe Biden assembled the commission in April to study Supreme Court reform. The idea most often proposed is to create staggered 18-year terms for the justices, which would be timed to open up a seat every two years. Materials from a recent commission meeting point out that the U.S. is the only major constitutional democracy with no retirement age or term limits and the average length of a justice’s term has gone from around 15 years in the late 1960s to around 26 years for justices who have left the court since 1970. The commission will send a final report to Biden next month.