Dear Friend,

It’s hard to imagine now, but the Senate used to confirm Supreme Court justices with huge bipartisan majorities. The 1987 vote for Anthony Kennedy was 97-0. The 1993 vote for Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 96-3. But now, Supreme Court nominations have become brutal, virulently partisan brawls, as evidenced by 2018 vote for Brett Kavanaugh, which was 50-48. The fight over this latest seat will be every bit as contentious.

Last summer, No Labels partnered with The Maxwell School at Syracuse University on a policy paper titled "Beyond Redistricting and Campaign Finance: Six Bold Ideas to Rebuild Our Democracy". One of the six ideas presented in the paper is to impose a single term-limit of 18 years for Supreme Court justices. Staggered term-limits would regularize the Supreme Court nomination process and once the new, staggered terms were fully phased in, everyone would understand that each president would get to nominate two Supreme Court justices in any four-year term. 

And this week, The Washington Post Editorial Board published an opinion piece in favor of adopting 18 year term-limits for every Supreme Court justice. 

We hope you’ll take chance to read up more on our idea as it shows there is a sensible way out of this endless cycle of partisan recriminations over the Supreme Court. You can read and share our policy paper here.