President Joe Biden is proposing sweeping changes to the U.S. Supreme Court, including term limits for the court’s nine justices instead of the current system which gives them lifetime appointments.
The change would need to be approved by Congress.
“When the Constitution was drafted, people didn’t live as long as they do now,” said Bill Treanor, the executive vice president and dean of the Law Center at Georgetown Law in D.C. “Now, we have justices remaining on the court for many, many years.”
Biden called for a system in which the sitting president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in service on the court.
According to Gabe Roth, executive director of the group Fix the Court, Supreme Court justices served an average of about 17 years from its founding until 1970.
Since 1970, the average has been about 28 years.
Justice Clarence Thomas has been on the court for nearly 33 years, Chief Justice John Roberts has served for 19 years and Justice Samuel Alito has served for 18.
Treanor noted that, under term limits, the ideological balance of the court would change more frequently as it would likely shift every time a new president takes office.
“The proposal would make it so, ultimately, it’s not happenstance or luck that determines the way the court is shaped,” said Treanor. “Some presidents get no appointments to the court and some, in a similar period of time, get three or four appointments.”
For example, Jimmy Carter had zero appointments to the court during his presidency, while Richard Nixon had four.
In addition to term limits, Biden called for Congress to pass legislation establishing a court code of ethics that would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.
Biden also called on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment reversing the Supreme Court’s recent landmark immunity ruling that determined former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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