Hypothetical 18 Year Terms for Supreme Court Justices

[Sorenroy]

Since 1950, there have been 17 people who have been appointed to and finished their role as justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. While the amount of time each of these people served varied tremendously (from 2 years, 301 days for Arthur Goldberg to 35 years, 127 days for John Paul Stevens), the average for the group is 20 years, 294 days. This is almost seven years longer than those appointed to the Supreme Court between 1900 and 1950 and likely is a reflection of the increasing life expectancy in the United States.

One of the points I heard in the 2016 election (on both sides) was that you had to vote for Trump/Clinton because of the long term impacts that their Supreme Court picks will cause. There is definitely some truth behind that. Not only is Antonin Scalia's spot now going to Trump's choice, but three other justices will be over 80 by the time Trump leaves office. While highly unlikely, Trump could, in only one four year term, be in charge of appointing a total of four justices to the Supreme Court (for reference, only nine Supreme Court justices have been appointed in the past 40 years [1987 forward, 11 if you stretch back to 1986]). In one term Trump could put forward as many justices as Obama and Bush in their 16 years combined. And this is not only coming from a liberal perspective. If Clinton had won, she would have this same power in her first term as well.

Now, I very much doubt that we will see the rotation of another three seats in the next four years, but I bring it up as an example of, what I believe, is a system that makes little sense. Why should one president be given so much more power than their predecessor? Imagine if Trump and Clinton's unpopularity had spawned a successful third party that won. They would be able to put forward four of their own justices that would likely be on the court for at least the next 20 years.

So what's the solution? As it says in the title, one solution I thought of was 18 year terms. This would mean that each president would nominate exactly two justices. If a justice decided to retire, resign, or die while on the bench, the current president would be able to appoint a replacement to fill out the remainder of the term. There would be no term limits but a justice would have to be renominated and reaffirmed to take a second (or third) term. In this way the power of the president over the Supreme Court is balanced out somewhat while (for the most part) not effecting any of the justices.

Anyway, this was just something I brainstormed up while doing some research for my American Government class and I wanted to share it. What do you guys think?