Designing Supreme Court Term Limits

Authors

Kyle Rozema, Washington University in St. Louis School of LawFollow
Adam Chilton, University of Chicago - Law SchoolFollow
Daniel Epps, Washington University in St. Louis School of LawFollow
Maya Sen, Harvard University-Harvard Kennedy SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2021

Publication Title

Southern California Law Review

Abstract

Since the Founding, Supreme Court justices have enjoyed life tenure. This helps insulate the justices from political pressures, but it also results in unpredictable deaths and strategic retirements determining the timing of Court vacancies. In order to regularize the appointment process, a number of academics and policymakers have put forward detailed term limits proposals. However, many of these proposals have been silent on many key design decisions and there has been almost no empirical work assessing the impact that term limits would have on the composition of the Supreme Court.

Keywords

Supreme Court, Empirical, Term Limits, Simulations

Publication Citation

Kyle Rozema, Designing Supreme Court Term Limits, 95 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1 (2021)

Repository Citation

Rozema, Kyle; Chilton, Adam; Epps, Daniel; and Sen, Maya, "Designing Supreme Court Term Limits" (2021). Scholarship@WashULaw. 91.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_scholarship/91