The Election Is Crucial to the Supreme Court’s Future. Biden’s Reform Plans Are Not.

President Biden on Monday proposed term limits and an ethics code for Supreme Court justices. Those reforms are unquestionably desirable but they have little chance of being enacted. The laser focus for Democrats and others alarmed by the direction of the court should instead be on the November election.

I say this because the potentially disastrous consequences of a Donald Trump victory — which no doubt would mean the expansion of the court’s conservative wing and more decisions that fundamentally compromise constitutional rights — are of urgent and imperative concern.

In 2021, Mr. Biden formed a bipartisan commission of lawyers and legal scholars to study and appraise possible changes to the court. It worked diligently and presented a lengthy report. Mr. Biden and most lawmakers ignored it. Now, he has rediscovered the issue.

The most important proposal by Mr. Biden is to impose term limits of 18 years for Supreme Court justices, which would allow a president to make two regular appointments in a single term. That idea makes enormous sense. Life expectancy now is much longer than it was in 1790 when the court first assembled. From then until 1970, the average tenure of a Supreme Court justice was approximately 15 years. For those appointed since 1970 who have left the bench, the average tenure was 26 years. Many of the current justices are likely to serve more than 30 years. That is too much power for too long in one person’s hands.

Lifetime tenure also leaves too much to accidents of history as to when vacancies occur. Mr. Trump appointed three justices in four years. Two of those appointments followed the deaths of sitting justices, Antonin Scalia, who died at 79 after nearly three decades on court, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was 87 and had spent 27 years as a justice. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama served a combined 16 years as president, but appointed only four justices during that time. President Jimmy Carter had no opportunity to make an appointment.

The problem with term limits for Supreme Court justices, and certainly ones that would apply to the current justices, is that they would require a constitutional amendment. The Supreme Court has long said, starting with McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819 and increasingly in recent years, that history and tradition are important in interpreting the Constitution. The tradition has always been that a Supreme Court justice holds the position for life, unless the justice resigns or is impeached and removed. Article III, Section 1, makes that clear: “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.”