With the rumored retirement of Justice Kennedy, President Trump could have the ability to appoint two Supreme Court justices within the first 7-months of his term. This raises the question, once again, whether life tenure is a good idea.

The lack of term limits has a profound effect on the nominations of Supreme Court justices. Instead of choosing justices on the basis of their experience and maturity, presidents have incentive to choose younger nominees to pack the court with justices who will reflect the incumbent party’s values for as long as possible. The justices, themselves, appear to time their retirement to coincide with the term of a president who will select a replacement with a similar political idealism. And the confirmation process has become more adversarial, as shown with the Republicans refusing to even grant a hearing to Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee.

There is no other foreign country that has a supreme court whose judges have life tenure. And doing so makes the distribution of appointments very uneven. For instance, Nixon had four appointments in four and a half years. While George W. Bush had none in his first term (although, he did have two in his second).

In 2006, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy proposed:

Congress and the states should pass a constitutional amendment imposing an eighteen‐year, staggered term limit on the tenure of Supreme Court Justices. Under our proposal, each Justice would serve for eighteen years, and the terms would be established so that a vacancy on the Court would occur every two years at the beginning of the summer recess in every odd‐numbered year. These terms would be structured so the turnover of Justices would occur during the first and third year of a President’s four‐year term

To do so would open Supreme Court positions to people in their 50’s and 60’s with more experience instead of focusing on ones in their 40’s who, presumably, will be on the court for decades. It would also result in a court that more accurately reflects the changes in the fabric of society.

As it stands, the future of our country could be determined by a one-term president shaping the court for decades followed by a two-term president with no appointments. It is time to regularize the appointment of Supreme Court justices. Whether or not Justice Kennedy retires, it is time to fix the system.