by Jorge Gomez • 3 minutes
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont recently proposed a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on future Supreme Court justices.
The proposed amendment would create 18-year terms, with new terms beginning every two years. This would only impact justices appointed after the amendment is ratified. Current justices would still be able to remain on the bench as long as they wish. The amendment does not change the number of justices on the Court.
“Our amendment maintains that there shall never be more than nine Justices and would gradually create regular vacancies on the Court, allowing the President to appoint a new Justice every two years with the advice and consent of the United States Senate,” Manchin and Welch said in a press release.
As amendment to the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress, and then would have to be ratified by the states, so it’s unlikely to get very far – but the proposal signals the dangerous plans some lawmakers have in mind for the courts.
As First Liberty experts have previously explained, ending life tenure for Supreme Court justices would be catastrophic to our judicial system and the rule of law. This proposal is nothing more than a politically motivated attempt to cancel justices.
The far Left and many politicians argue that term limits and other radical “reforms” are needed because the Supreme Court has allegedly “lost credibility” in the eyes of the American people. Manchin and Welch say that the Court is facing an approval crisis and that their proposal will “restore confidence in the Court.”
But these claims simply aren’t true. Contrary to what the far Left says, Americans support the Supreme Court and view our judicial system favorably. Although numbers for all branches have faltered in recent years, the judiciary consistently ranks as the most trusted branch of the federal government.
According to a Marquette Law School poll, approval of the Supreme Court is “edging upward.” 45% of American adults approve of the justices’ work. That’s a slight increase from 43% when the same poll was conducted in July. A separate survey from Gallup found a slightly higher 48% of the public trusts the judicial branch a “great deal/fair amount.”
A Mason-Dixon poll commissioned by First Liberty revealed that most Americans reject proposals to change the U.S. Supreme Court, which include court packing, court purging by ending lifetime tenure and Congress overseeing the Court via a “code of ethics.” Overall, 52% oppose amending the U.S. Constitution to alter the Supreme Court’s structure.
Still, the far Left wants Americans to believe that ending life tenure for Supreme Court justices is a benign and “common sense” reform, when in fact it would be a radical and sweeping change to our judicial system.
They try to disguise this extreme proposal by calling it “term limits.” That’s because polling indicates most Americans favor term limits for elected politicians. But Americans would be wise not to fall for the idea that term limits are good across the board. What might work if applied to politicians would have a very different impact if forced on Supreme Court justices.
When the dangers of the so-called judicial “term limits” proposal are exposed, Americans discern the truth. Close to half (46%) agreed that lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices are necessary to promote judicial independence. 87% said an independent judiciary is a crucial safeguard of our rights and freedoms. How different might that first number be if they understood that lifetime appointments are necessary for an independent judiciary?
As designed by the Framers of the Constitution, life tenure for Supreme Court justices has worked well for more than 230 years and is an essential component that ensures judicial independence. Judicial term limits would destroy one of the hallmark features built into our system of government.
In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton penned one of the most eloquent defenses for lifetime judicial tenure. He wrote that judicial independence “can certainly not be expected from judges who hold their offices by a temporary commission.”
Hamilton described a judiciary that serves with life tenure under good behavior as “certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government.” According to Hamilton, we want judges serving with life tenure, because this is “the best expedient which can be devised in any government, to secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws.”
Term limits is simply the Supreme Court Coup by a different name. This proposal should be called out for what it really is: court purging, removing Justice Thomas first, then Roberts and Alitio. Supreme Court justices have held lifetime appointments for ALL of American history, since the first day the Constitution went into effect. That system isn’t broken. Life tenure has helped preserve our rights, liberty, judicial independence and the stability of our legal system for more than 230 years.
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