Rick Perry Wants Supreme Court Term Limits
Tom Ramstack

Washington, DC

The Supreme Court will be confronting a controversy it never expected when it reconvenes this month.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is suggesting that the nine Supreme Court justices have their terms limited to 18 years.

Perry, the current Texas governor, is the Republican frontrunner for the 2012 presidential race.

He raised the issue in his book "Fed Up" that takes jabs at the Washington establishment. He lodges harsh criticism at the Supreme Court.

He calls the court "nine oligarchs in robes."

Oligarchs refer to members of a committee who hold absolute power in government.

"We should take steps to restrict the unlimited power of the courts to rule over us with no accountability," Perry writes in his book. An entire chapter of his book criticizes the judiciary.

If Perry is elected president, accomplishing his goal of term limits for the Supreme Court would be difficult, according to legal scholars.

Life terms for Supreme Court justices are guaranteed by Article III of the Constitution. Most legal scholars say only a constitutional amendment could create the new limits.

However, the idea of term limits is not new.

Thomas Jefferson suggested them while the Constitution was being written after the American Revolution.

The idea has arisen several times since then, such as the 1980s and early 1990s after Senate confirmation hearings for new justices turned bitter from partisan politics. Five of the current justices were appointed by Republican presidents.

Even John Roberts said he preferred term limits before he was appointed Supreme Court chief justice by President Barack Obama.

A few bills and proposals for constitutional amendments to enact term limits were filed by members of Congress in recent years, but they never progressed to final votes.

Linda Greenhouse, a Yale Law School professor and former Supreme Court reporter for The New York Times, supports term limits.

She described her reasons during a 2009 debate on the issue at Yale.

In addition to the advanced ages typical on the Supreme Court, an additional reason "is simply that justices who have spent decades in the Supreme Court's ivory tower become out of touch with the cultural currents of the society," Greenhouse said.

As a result, the Constitution's goal of promoting "public values" by allowing politicians to appoint the justices is frustrated, she said.

"That wouldn't matter, except that the Court regularly decides major issues affecting how Americans live their lives," Greenhouse said.

Perry is using the same kind of reasoning in his arguments for 18-year term limits.

The current average tenure for Supreme Court justices is just over 26 years.

Perry wants to stagger the terms to ensure a required retirement every two years. The regular schedule of retirements would avoid the risk of any one president appointing a majority of the nine justices.

Public opinion seems to favor proposals like Perry's.

A 2010 Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind Poll found 52 percent of Americans prefer limiting Supreme Court terms to 18 years, while 35 percent disapproved.

One question on the survey asked how old is too old for Supreme Court justices if they are healthy.

Forty-eight percent of respondents said "no limit as long as he or she is healthy."

However, 31 percent said anyone over the age of 70 is too old.

The only limit mentioned in the Constitution on Supreme Court appointments is that justices can serve "during good behavior."

Removing them requires a conviction for "high crimes and misdemeanors," which is extremely rare in American history.