Senate Democrats have reintroduced legislation that would impose 18-year term limits on Supreme Court justices, with polling suggesting the proposal has never been more popular.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is leading the push alongside Senators Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal, and Alex Padilla, who together reintroduced the Supreme Court Biennial Appointments and Term Limits Act.
The bill, known as the BATL Act, follows the same core structure as its two previous iterations, centring on 18-year terms for Supreme Court justices.
Under the proposal, the president would be required to appoint a new justice in the first and third years of each presidential term, creating a more predictable and regular appointment schedule.
Only the nine most recently appointed justices would hear cases arising under the Court’s appellate jurisdiction, which covers the vast majority of cases that reach the Supreme Court.
Justices who have served their 18-year active terms would not be removed from the bench entirely, retaining their seats, salaries, and the original jurisdiction docket.
That specific provision is widely considered to be the legal mechanism that allows this reform to be pursued as ordinary legislation rather than requiring a Constitutional amendment.
The distinction is significant, as passing a Constitutional amendment requires support from two-thirds of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of US states, a far higher bar than standard legislation.
Supporters of the bill argue that the current system of lifetime appointments gives any single president an outsized and unpredictable influence over the Court’s ideological direction for decades.
The reintroduction comes at a moment when public backing for Supreme Court reform is described as being at its strongest, according to the bill’s sponsors, giving Democrats a political opening to press the issue.
Critics of term limits legislation have long argued that lifetime tenure protects judicial independence by insulating justices from political pressure tied to future career prospects.
Whether the bill advances in the current legislative environment remains uncertain, but its sponsors appear intent on keeping Supreme Court reform at the centre of the national political conversation.