There is a popular perception among Americans that the U.S. Supreme Court has lost touch with the lives and struggles of everyday people. A General Social Survey poll reported that only 18% of Americans have great confidence in the Supreme Court, a historic low.
Three recent court decisions regarding the narrowing of affirmative action in college admissions, the gutting of President Biden’s program to eliminate student debt and functionally sanctioning discrimination against sexual orientation minorities has many Americans worried that the court’s conservative majority has no interest in anyone who is not wealthy, a person of color or straight.
As a result of these concerns, U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-California) and Don Beyer (D-Virginia) reintroduced The Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act on June 30. Khanna and Beyer’s legislation would create an 18-year term limit for Supreme Court justices appointed after the law takes effect.
After the 18-year term, justices could then continue their service on lower courts. Presently, justices serve lifetime tenures and can only leave office through death, resignation, or impeachment. The legislation is a step in the right direction to make sure that the Supreme Court will be an unbiased, fair and ideologically balanced body with the best interests of all Americans.
Khanna is correct in saying the founding fathers intended for lifetime appointments to ensure impartiality, but that is not the case presently with the justices becoming partisan and out of step with the American public. Beyer is also correct in saying the court “is a distant, secretive, unelected body that can make drastic changes in their lives without accountability.”
Former Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California), a bill supporter, said term limits will “depoliticize the court and restore public trust in the institution.”
Federal lawmakers must run for reelection every two or six years and the president can only serve two consecutive elected terms because of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution. Justices should be held to term limits also, so they are accountable to the people, not a small group of powerful, conservative special interests.