Michael Scherer, Washington Post:

President Biden is finalizing plans to endorse major changes to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks, including proposals for legislation to establish term limits for the justices and an enforceable ethics code, according to two people briefed on the plans.…

The announcement would mark a major shift for Biden, a former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has long resisted calls to make substantive changes to the high court. The potential changes come in response to growing outrage among his supporters about recent ethics scandals surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas and decisions by the new court majority that have changed legal precedent on issues including abortion and federal regulatory powers.

Long overdue. Several recent SCOTUS decisions are destabilizing our democracy. Expanding the Courts and introducing term limits is a good start.

Alison Durkee, writing for Forbes, expands on how term limits would work.

After their term is up, justices wouldn’t resign completely, but would only hear a smaller subset of cases: Only the nine most recently appointed justices would hear most cases, while other justices would join in for cases that originate in the Supreme Court, which include disputes between states or foreign officials.

That’s a clever workaround to the constitutional “lifetime appointment” (which, as noted in the article, is stated as “judges… shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.”)