Manchin, Welch unveil bill placing term limits on Supreme Court

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (I) and Vermont Sen. Peter Welch (D) have introduced a resolution to impose 18-year term limits on Supreme Court justices, which would require some turnover on the high court every two years.

Specifically, their resolution calls for a constitutional amendment to institute nonrenewable 18-year terms for new Supreme Court justices, with a new term starting every two years.

“The current lifetime appointment structure is broken and fuels polarizing confirmation battles and political posturing that has eroded public confidence in the highest court in our land,” Manchin, who is retiring at the end of the year, said in a statement.

“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,” he said.

Welch, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the measure is intended “to restore public trust in our nation's most powerful court.”

“Setting term limits for Supreme Court Justices will cut down on political gamesmanship, and is commonsense reform supported by a majority of Americans,” he said.

The proposed amendment would not alter the tenure of sitting justices, who would continue to serve as long as they desire or until incapacitation.

It would implement a transition period during which 18-year terms would begin every two years regardless of when a current justice leaves the bench, according to an explanation issued by the senators’ offices.

When a current justice retires, the newly appointed justice would serve out the remainder of the next 18-year term.

It would keep the total number of justices at nine.

The senators pointed out that public confidence in the Supreme Court has plummeted in recent years, as only 16 percent of Americans said they had a “great deal of confidence” in it after the 2024 term.

An Annenberg Public Policy Center survey of 1,600 U.S. adults conducted in May found that 68 percent of Americans support setting term limits for justices and 71 percent support requiring justices to retire at a certain age.

A variety of former federal judges and legal scholars support Manchin’s and Welch’s proposal.

Diane P. Wood, a retired U.S. Circuit judge for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals pointed out that only one state allows judges to serve life tenures without restriction and that most “apex courts around the world” have implemented term limits.

“It is time for the United States to make this change to the federal judiciary. The proposed joint resolution does so in a manner consistent with our constitutional design,” Wood said.

Kermit Roosevelt, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School said the senators’ proposal “offers a non-partisan fix to an appointment process that our political parties have broken in ways the Framers could not anticipate,” referring to the “politicization of the judiciary.”