Two-Thirds of Americans Say Supreme Court Justices Should Have Term Limits

A new poll demonstrates that nearly two-thirds of Americans back a reform to the U.S. Supreme Court that President Joe Biden recently announced his support for: the implementation of term limits for justices.

Currently, Supreme Court justices are appointed to lifetime tenures, and can only be removed through impeachment by Congress. Only one justice in U.S. history was ever impeached, and that individual was not subsequently removed following survival in a Senate trial.

According to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll conducted August 1-4, 65 percent of Americans believe that justices should no longer be given lifetime appointments, agreeing with the sentiment that they “should only serve for a limited time.” Just 34 percent believed they “should continue to be allowed to serve as long as they want.”

The rate of support for term limits is consistent with results from the poll in the past — in April 2023, 68 percent said they backed term limits, and in July 2015, 72 percent voiced support for such a reform.

Support for the reform was evident across nearly every demographic polled, with support among all incomes, levels of college education, races, ethnicities, regions, genders and more. Only in one demographic was there inconsistency: a slim majority of Republicans, 55 percent, were opposed to term limits, according to the poll, likely due to the court issuing a string of opinions promoting their far right agenda in recent years. Still, a sizable proportion of Republicans, 45 percent, said they did back term limits.

Biden has recently reopened the debate regarding reforming the Supreme Court, issuing a statement late last month in support of term limits as well as other changes that could help balance what many see as being a broken court.

In addition to supporting 18-year term limits for members of the court, Biden called for a stricter code of ethics that would be backed by an independent authority, not just the justices themselves. He also backed the overturn of a recent decision by the court that found that former presidents should receive “immunity” for criminal actions they took while in office, so long as they utilized a constitutional power while engaging in such actions.

Biden cited that ruling and others in his comments, including the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the numerous ethics scandals the Supreme Court is currently embroiled in.

“What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,” Biden said in his statement.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running to replace Biden following his dropping out of the 2024 presidential election, has also expressed support for reforms to the Supreme Court — including stating in 2020 that she was “open” to expanding the court’s size in order to deal with past actions by Republicans to orchestrate the Court’s far right shift.

Harris has also said that the number of justices presidents are able to appoint per term in office should be limited.

“We are on the verge of a crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court … we have to take this challenge head on, and everything is on the table to do that,” Harris said at the time.

Polls have shown that most Americans support increasing the size of the court, with a slight majority in a Marquette Law School poll from October of last year (54 percent) backing that kind of reform.