From Bob Barnes and Seung Min Kim at the Washington Post:

President Biden’s commission to study structural revisions to the Supreme Court found one potential change both Democrats and Republicans have said they could support: implementing term limits for the justices, who currently have lifetime tenure….

The opposition from both corners adds another layer of doubt that proposals laid out and debated by Biden’s Supreme Court commission will translate into tangible action in the near future….

Those who support limiting the tenure of justices — 18 years is the length often mentioned — say doing so would ensure that the Supreme Court is broadly responsive to the outcome of elections over time and would make appointments of justices more predictable, according to the commission’s findings.

Most presidents have gotten one or two chances to name a justice to the Supreme Court, while others have had upward of four opportunities and others none at all — all determined by either fate or the choices of the justices themselves. But an 18-year tenure for justices would mean that each president, in one term, would have the chance to pick two members of the court once term limits are fully implemented. (A similar proposal, but for 12-year term limits, would allow for three per presidential term.)

It would also, according to term limit proponents, help ensure that no one justice has excessive influence over time. The commission took no formal position on term limits, but noted testimony from a group of Supreme Court practitioners who concluded that an 18-year term for justices “warrants serious consideration.”…

Yet the United States remains the only major democracy on the planet without either a mandatory retirement age or a term limit for justices who serve on its highest court, according to the commission. The average tenure of a Supreme Court member has also gotten longer with time, as justices get tapped at an earlier age and people generally live longer….

The White House has given no indication of what Biden plans to do with the report’s findings. In the past, Biden has resisted intense pressure from liberal activists to endorse an expansion of the Supreme Court or other structural changes, and it remains to be seen whether the commission’s findings — which did not offer recommendations to the president — would change his mind.