Supreme Court Reform: Term Limits, Ethics, and Court Expansion

Supreme Court reform is a bundle of proposals aimed at changing how the Court is staffed, how its justices behave, and how it decides cases. The main ideas on the table are 18-year term limits, a binding and enforceable ethics code, transparency rules for the emergency “shadow docket,” expanding the number of justices, stripping the Court’s jurisdiction over certain subjects, and allowing cameras during oral arguments. As of mid-2026, only the cameras bill has advanced out of a Senate committee. No structural change has become law, and the constitutional path for several of the biggest proposals is contested.

Why Reform Is Being Debated Now

Public confidence in the Court has fallen sharply. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in August 2025 found that half of Americans hold an unfavorable view of the Court, 22 percentage points lower than in August 2020.¹ Separate polling cited by the Brennan Center for Justice places confidence at 22 percent.² Fifty-six percent of Americans say the justices are doing an “only fair or poor job” of keeping personal politics out of their decisions, even though 86 percent say politics should play no role at all.

Views split hard along party lines. Only 26 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents view the Court favorably, compared with 71 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.¹ That gap drives the reform debate and also limits it. Reform is almost entirely a Democratic project in Congress, which shapes what is politically possible.

Eighteen-Year Term Limits

The most popular reform proposal is replacing life tenure with fixed 18-year terms, staggered so a new appointment comes up every two years. Under most versions, a justice who completes the 18 years takes “senior status” rather than leaving the bench entirely, remaining available to hear lower court cases or to fill in if active membership drops below nine.²

Polling backs the idea by wide margins. A 2024 Fox News poll found 78 percent of Americans in favor.² Research pooling nine nationally representative surveys between 2020 and 2023 found roughly 73 percent support, with 84 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of Republicans in favor, a level researchers describe as “fairly stable” through recent political shocks.³

Bills in Congress

In October 2023, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal, and Alex Padilla introduced the Supreme Court Biennial Appointments and Term Limits Act. It would set 18-year terms, require appointments in the first and third years of each presidential term within 120 days, and limit appellate work to the nine most recently appointed justices. Those past 18 years would hear only original jurisdiction matters.⁴

In the House, Representative Hank Johnson reintroduced the Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization (TERM) Act on May 21, 2025, with more than three dozen cosponsors including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamie Raskin, Jerrold Nadler, and Pramila Jayapal. Current justices would move to senior status in order of seniority as new justices are confirmed.⁵

Can Term Limits Be Done by Statute?

The central legal fight is whether Congress can impose term limits by ordinary legislation or needs a constitutional amendment. Article III says federal judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour,” language the Supreme Court has itself called the “practical equivalent of life tenure.”⁶

Supporters of statutory reform, including researchers at the Brennan Center, argue that the senior-status model does not end a justice’s service; it redefines the duties after 18 years, much as Congress already does for lower court judges who take senior status. Constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky and others counter that the Good Behavior Clause means life tenure, and that a fixed term, especially applied to sitting justices, would require a constitutional amendment.⁶

An amendment is a very high bar: two-thirds of each chamber of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states. Even Biden’s Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court, which found “considerable, bipartisan support” for 18-year term limits, acknowledged that implementation might require an amendment.⁷

Ethics Rules and Enforcement

On November 13, 2023, the Supreme Court adopted its first formal code of conduct. The five canons cover integrity, avoiding impropriety, impartial performance of duties, financial activities and gifts, and refraining from political activity. The Court framed the code as a written statement of principles it had “long regarded as governing” its conduct.⁸

Critics called the code unenforceable. No outside body can interpret, apply, or enforce it, so each justice judges their own conduct. The code also acknowledges a “rule of necessity” that can override recusal when no substitute justice is available, and it did not tighten financial disclosure requirements, which critics say have been sidestepped on gifts such as travel, tuition payments, and real estate.⁹

The legislative response is the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, introduced by Senator Whitehouse on May 20, 2025. The bill would:

Require the Court to issue a binding code of conduct within 180 days.
Establish a formal complaint process modeled on the one for lower court judges.
Create a judicial investigation panel of five randomly selected circuit court chief judges to handle misconduct allegations.
Mandate disclosure of gifts and income under standards matching those for Congress.
Expand disqualification rules where a party or affiliate has spent significant money on a justice’s nomination or provided gifts in the prior six years.
Require entities filing amicus briefs to disclose major donors.

The bill has 28 cosponsors and is before the Senate Judiciary Committee.¹⁰

Shadow Docket Transparency

The “shadow docket” refers to emergency orders the Court issues without full briefing, oral argument, or sometimes any written explanation. These rulings on stays, injunctions, and emergency applications can carry nationwide consequences even when they are not final decisions on the merits.

Use of this docket has surged. In its first 20 weeks, the Trump administration filed 19 shadow docket applications, equal to the total the Biden administration filed over four years and more than the combined total from the Obama and George W. Bush administrations across 16 years. As of April 2026, the Court had issued 25 decisions in those cases, ruling at least partially in the administration’s favor 20 times and against it five times. Seven of those rulings came with no written explanation.¹¹

Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the docket was being used “to transfer government authority from Congress to the President, and thus to reshape the Nation’s separation of powers.” Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson have written similarly pointed dissents.¹¹

On May 21, 2026, Representative Jamie Raskin introduced three bills targeting emergency orders. The SHADOW Act would require a written explanation for every emergency order within seven days, including the factors considered and the effect of the ruling. Parties seeking emergency relief would need to demonstrate “specific, immediate harm” rather than relying on an assumption that blocking a government policy automatically causes irreparable injury. A companion bill, the SCCOTUS Act, would route initial case selection to a rotating panel of randomly selected federal appeals court judges, who would need four votes to grant review and would have to explain their decisions in writing.¹²

Expanding the Court

Adding seats to the Supreme Court is the most polarizing proposal. The Judiciary Act of 2021, introduced by Senator Ed Markey and Representatives Jerrold Nadler, Hank Johnson, and Mondaire Jones, would have added four seats for a total of 13, one for each federal circuit. Proponents argued that Republicans had “stolen two seats” through the blocking of Merrick Garland’s nomination in 2016 and the rushed confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett in 2020.¹³ A similar bill was reintroduced in 2023.¹⁴

Expansion faces steep opposition even inside the Democratic Party. President Biden said in 2021 he was “not a fan” of the idea, and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to bring it to the floor.¹³ Biden’s Presidential Commission reported “profound disagreement” over expansion, with opponents arguing it would diminish the Court’s independence and legitimacy.⁷ Public opinion is cool: increasing the number of justices draws less than majority support in polls.³

Congress clearly has the constitutional authority to change the Court’s size. The number has moved by statute several times, from six at the founding to as many as ten during the Civil War, down to seven under Andrew Johnson, and fixed at nine in 1869.¹⁵

The ghost that haunts this debate is 1937. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, frustrated by a Court striking down New Deal programs, proposed legislation that would have let him appoint an additional justice for every sitting member over 70, potentially adding six seats. He pitched it publicly as a workload measure. The Senate Judiciary Committee called it an “invasion of judicial power,” the Senate tabled it in July 1937, and FDR ultimately reshaped the Court without changing its size by outlasting seven of the nine justices and appointing eight during his presidency.¹⁶ The 1937 defeat is the most frequent cautionary tale invoked against expansion today.

Jurisdiction Stripping

Jurisdiction stripping would use Congress’s Article III power to remove certain categories of cases from the Court’s appellate jurisdiction. The constitutional basis is the Exceptions Clause, which gives the Court appellate jurisdiction “with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”¹⁷

Congress has at various points proposed stripping jurisdiction over school desegregation, abortion, school prayer, and same-sex marriage.¹⁸ The No Kings Act, introduced by then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and 33 other Democratic senators in August 2024, sought to strip the Court of jurisdiction to enforce the presidential immunity recognized in Trump v. United States, routing final authority to the D.C. Circuit.¹⁷

Academic research cautions that stripping is an unreliable tool. Daniel Epps and Alan Trammell have argued it often empowers state courts that may not share Congress’s goals, that courts have doctrinal tools to work around it, and that many federal regulatory programs would simply fail without active judicial participation.¹⁸ There is also no scholarly consensus on whether stripping the Court’s power of judicial review is itself constitutional, given Marbury v. Madison.¹⁹

Cameras in the Courtroom

The reform closest to passing is also the most modest. The Cameras in the Courtroom Act, introduced by Senators Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley, would require the Court to permit television coverage of all open sessions unless a majority of justices vote that doing so would violate a party’s due process rights. On June 18, 2026, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the bill by voice vote, further than any cameras bill has gone before.²⁰ It is also the only reform bill with meaningful bipartisan sponsorship. The Court has provided live audio of oral arguments since May 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, but video remains unavailable.

What Biden Proposed

On July 29, 2024, President Joe Biden announced a three-part reform plan: 18-year term limits, a binding code of ethics, and a constitutional amendment stating that former presidents have no immunity from criminal prosecution for acts committed in office. The immunity amendment was a direct response to Trump v. United States.²¹²² None of the measures advanced in a divided Congress.

Earlier, in 2021, Biden had convened a 34-member Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court, co-chaired by Bob Bauer and Cristina Rodríguez. Its December 2021 report ran 288 pages and, by design, offered analysis rather than recommendations. On expansion it found “profound disagreement.” On term limits it noted “considerable, bipartisan support” but flagged the constitutional question. On procedure, it said the Court “may well benefit” from greater transparency around emergency orders and endorsed continuing live audio of arguments.²³⁷

The Case Against Reform

Opposition is organized primarily around the Federalist Society and an interconnected network of conservative legal organizations. Leonard Leo, a longtime Federalist Society leader and trustee of the $1.6 billion Marble Freedom Trust, has been the central figure in a decades-long effort to populate federal courts with originalist judges.²⁴ The Judicial Crisis Network has spent heavily on advertising during confirmation battles and against expansion legislation.¹³

The conservative arguments against reform run along a few lines: life tenure protects judicial independence from political pressure; the current composition reflects legitimate appointments; expansion would set off escalating partisan retaliation; and term limits are inconsistent with the Good Behavior Clause. The broader strategy emphasizes shaping the Court by filling it through the existing appointment process rather than by changing its structure.²⁴

The Trump administration has taken an adversarial posture toward judges who rule against it. President Trump has publicly called a federal judge “crooked” and a “radical left lunatic” and pressed for impeachment. Vice President JD Vance stated that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Chief Justice John Roberts responded publicly, defending judicial independence and rebuking impeachment calls over unfavorable rulings.²⁵

How the United States Compares

No other major democracy grants lifetime tenure to judges on its highest court.²⁶ Specialized constitutional courts in countries such as Germany, South Korea, and Spain use fixed, nonrenewable terms running from nine to 15 years, with nine the most common.²⁷ Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom once practiced life tenure for their senior judges and have since moved to mandatory retirement ages, typically 70 or 75. Among the more than 800 constitutions adopted since 1787, nearly 20 percent originally included some form of lifetime tenure, but every country with such a provision now also imposes a mandatory retirement age.

Within the United States, the federal Supreme Court is also unusual. Forty-seven states require their supreme court justices to serve fixed terms, and most impose mandatory retirement ages. Rhode Island is the only state that grants its high court justices life tenure without an age limit.²⁶

Where Reform Stands

Reform remains almost entirely a Democratic project. No Republican in Congress has co-sponsored a term limits or expansion bill, and the ethics reform legislation drew no Republican cosponsors either. The cameras bill is the only measure with real bipartisan backing and the only one to have cleared even a committee vote. Polling researchers have noted that reform proposals lacking broad, stable, bipartisan support are likely to be “dead on arrival” in Congress.³ As of mid-2026, no structural change to the Supreme Court appears imminent.

1
Pew Research Center. Favorable Views of Supreme Court Remain Near Historic Low
2
Brennan Center for Justice. Six Solutions to Fix the Supreme Court
3
Brennan Center for Justice. Public Opinion on Term Limits and Other Supreme Court Reforms
4
Office of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. Whitehouse, Booker, Blumenthal, Padilla Introduce New Supreme Court Term Limits Bill
5
Office of Representative Hank Johnson. Rep. Johnson Re-Introduces Supreme Court Justice Term Limit Measure
6
National Constitution Center. Can Congress Enact Supreme Court Term Limits Without a Constitutional Amendment
7
SCOTUSblog. Presidential Court Commission Approves Final Report Identifying Disagreement on Expansion
8
Supreme Court of the United States. Code of Conduct for Justices of the Supreme Court
9
Brennan Center for Justice. New Supreme Court Ethics Code Designed to Fail
10
U.S. Congress. S.1814 – Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act
11
Brennan Center for Justice. Supreme Court Shadow Docket Tracker
12
House Democrats – Judiciary Committee. Ranking Member Raskin Introduces Trio of Reforms to End Supreme Court Shadow Docket Secrecy
13
SCOTUSblog. Bill to Enlarge the Supreme Court Faces Dim Prospects in Congress
14
Democracy Docket. Democrats Introduce Bill to Expand U.S. Supreme Court
15
Supreme Court Historical Society. FDR Court-Packing Controversy
16
National Constitution Center. How FDR Lost His Brief War on the Supreme Court
17
Steve Vladeck. Jurisdiction Stripping and the Supreme Court
18
Columbia Law Review. The False Promise of Jurisdiction Stripping
19
Harvard Law Review. Confusion and Clarity in the Case for Supreme Court Reform
20
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Senate Judiciary Committee Passes Durbin-Grassley Bill to Put Cameras in the Supreme Court
21
PBS NewsHour. Biden Calls for Supreme Court Term Limits as Part of Reform Plan
22
The American Presidency Project. Fact Sheet: President Biden Announces Bold Plan to Reform the Supreme Court
23
The American Presidency Project. Final Report of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court
24
ProPublica. We Dont Talk About Leonard Leo
25
Courthouse News Service. Court Watchers Give SCOTUS Poor Marks as Trump Bulldozes Judiciary
26
Brennan Center for Justice. Supreme Court Term Limits
27
Biden White House Archives. Testimony of Tom Ginsburg