Court: Term limits needed for Supreme Court

Back in the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt complained of “economic royalists,” but he never mentioned our political royalty – entrenched politicians who get elected and stay elected for decades and decades.

It’s time to limit the terms of these elected monarchs through a constitutional amendment. No individual should serve more than 12 years in the House or Senate.

While I am a supporter of term limits for these politicians, the death of Antonin Scalia made me think about limiting terms for Supreme Court justices. I did a bit of analysis on the 104 justices who completed their terms on the court, either through retirement or death, and the average length of service for these men and women is 16.9 years with a population standard deviation of 9.9 years.

A simple histogram revealed that 50 percent of all these 104 judges had term lengths of more than five but less than 20 years.

With lifetime appointments, Supreme Court judges have become the ultimate government nobility. No one should be in such a position of power and influence for more than 15 years. It’s time to amend the Constitution to rid our system of “political royalists” and “judicial royalists” alike.

This story was originally published March 28, 2016 at 1:10 PM with the headline "Court: Term limits needed for Supreme Court."