House Democrats introduced a bill (read it here) on Tuesday, July 26, 2022, limiting Supreme Court justices to 18 years of “active service,” after which they would be “deemed to have retired” (see story here).
This isn’t going anywhere, at least not in the present Congress, so this discussion is purely academic. The Democrats would have to elect more senators to suspend the Senate filibuster rule, and if Biden saw fit to sign it into law, nobody should be surprised if the Supreme Court strikes it down (although, from a legal analytical point of view, it’s not cut-and-dried unconstitutional, see article here.)
This isn’t a new idea. The bill mirrors a proposal that was being kicked around well before the 2020 election (see article here).
I’ll just say one thing about it: It’s missing a McConnell Clause.
The bill calls for the president appointing a new justice every two years (and retiring existing ones on the same schedule). The existing justice would remain active until the new one is confirmed, so this won’t create vacancies; but without a McConnell Clause, it could result in holdovers.
To prevent McConnell from giving the new nominees the Merrick Garland treatment, the bill should include a clause saying the Senate must vote on each new appointment within a set amount of time, say 120 days. Without that, McConnell or a GOP senator like him could keep current justices on the active bench indefinitely by stalling confirmation of their replacements.