More than 50 advocacy groups join push for bill limiting Supreme Court terms

More than 50 advocacy organizations fighting for a variety of issues are endorsing legislation that would enact term limits for Supreme Court judges. 

The group of 56 organizations announced their endorsement of the TERM Act — which was originally introduced in 2022 by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), was floated again last year and would create 18-year terms for current and future justices — in a press release Tuesday, first shared with The Hill.

“Extremists on the Supreme Court have undermined our democracy and fundamental freedoms by gutting voting rights, opening the floodgates to unlimited corporate money in our elections, and reversing 50 years of precedent by overturning Roe v. Wade,” Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America, said in a statement. 

Johnson’s bill, titled the Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act, garnered 28 co-sponsors in Congress last year. The groups now endorsing it range from Accountable.US to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to Voices for Progress. 

Johnson, the ranking member of the House Judiciary subcommittee on courts, said in 2022 the high court’s bench “is increasingly facing a legitimacy crisis.” 

His bill would allow the president to nominate a justice to the Supreme Court every two years — in the first and third years following a presidential election. The longest-serving judges would achieve senior status first. 

“The TERM Act is necessary because lifetime tenure on the United States Supreme Court leads to a Court that is insulated from, and unaccountable to, the American people, which is bad for democracy,” Johnson said when reintroducing the bill in September 2023.

When it was introduced in 2022, Johnson’s bill died in committee. When reintroducing his legislation in 2023, Johnson pointed to polling from the Pew Research Center showing the court’s favorability declining. 

“No one deserves power for life,” Harvey said in a statement. “That’s why 49 out of 50 states have either term limits, elections, or age limits for their highest courts.”