When Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan testified before the House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees in July to request an increase in the court’s security budget, some members of Congress had other topics front of mind, such as ethics codes, the emergency docket, prediction markets, and scientific evidence. These discussions came against the backdrop of proposed congressional legislation that would reshape how the court operates.
On July 22, a quartet of Democratic Senators re-introduced the Supreme Court Biennial Appointments and Term Limits Act. The authors announced that the bill would establish 18-year terms for justices to participate in all Supreme Court cases, after which they would only adjudicate on original jurisdiction cases (that is, cases the court is constitutionally empowered to hear) – which usually make up about one-to-five cases per term.
However, the bill’s text actually makes no mention of 18-year terms. Rather, it directs the president to nominate a new justice within the first 120 days of the first and third year of their term. It then stipulates that the nine most recently appointed justices would preside over appellate jurisdiction cases (the vast majority of the court’s docket).
That means the 18-year tagline may be a slight misnomer. If a vacancy occurs among the nine appellate jurisdiction justices, the least senior previously active justice could slide back down to the appellate bench until the next scheduled appointment. Alternatively, if a vacancy brings the total number of justices below nine, the president is directed to fill that seat, regardless of the appointment timeline.
Article III of the constitution states that judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour,” which has historically been interpreted as implying lifetime tenure. Some argue that clause precludes Congress from establishing term limits absent a constitutional amendment, but term limit advocates say proposals like the recently introduced bill bypass this issue by technically maintaining lifetime appointments, even as some justices lose their ability to vote on most cases.
In May, Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, introduced a separate trio of bills his office said would “bolster accountability.”
The SHADOW Act targets the court’s emergency docket decisions, requiring it to “state why it ruled the way it did, what factors it considered, and what the decision does.” Raskin’s SCOTUS Act overhauls the process by which the court grants review of cases. Currently, four justices need to vote for a case to be heard on the merits docket. The bill strips the power to grant certiorari from the court entirely, instead establishing a panel of 13 randomly selected appeals court judges – one from each circuit – to review petitions under a four-vote standard. The Federal Funding Protection Act clarifies that federal district courts can hear individual claims to vacate the termination of a grant by a federal agency, if that termination was part of a broader agency policy that is also being challenged.
Another court-reform bill on the table is the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, introduced in 2025 by Democratic lawmakers in both chambers. The bill requires the court to issue a publicly accessible code of conduct, violations of which would be submitted to a panel of five circuit chief judges. It also commands the court to adopt gift disclosure standards that are at least as thorough as those which Congress abides by and tightens the requirements for justices to recuse themselves from cases due to conflicts of interest.
On the Republican side of the aisle, SCOTUS-related legislation has primarily centered on the proposal of a constitutional amendment to cap the bench at nine justices. These efforts come as several Democrats have pledged to add seats to the Supreme Court should the party gain control of the presidency and Congress. The constitution does not specify how many justices sit on the court, though there have not been more than nine since 1866.
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