Event marks release of bipartisan American Academy of Arts & Sciences report on the reform

Fix the Court Executive Director Gabe Roth will participate in a panel discussion at Boston’s Kennedy Institute on Wed., Oct. 25, on how Supreme Court term limits can be achieved via federal legislation.

The other panelists are Charles Fried, Akhil Amar and Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Judge Patti Saris will act as moderator, and the event will be livestreamed.

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences is convening the panel in honor of a new publication — which goes live here the morning of Oct. 25 — from its bipartisan U.S. Supreme Court Working Group titled “The Case for Supreme Court Term Limits.” 

The report examines how 18-year term limits for the justices could be enacted without a constitutional amendment.

WHO: Yale Law’s Akhil Reed Amar
Boston Globe‘s Kimberly Atkins Stohr
Harvard Law’s Charles Fried
Fix the Court’s Gabe Roth
Moderated by D. Mass. Judge Patti Saris

WHAT: “The Legislative Path to Supreme Court Reform” — panel discussion and report release

WHERE: Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, Columbia Point, Boston

WHEN: 6:00 p.m. ET — Reception  |  7:00 p.m. ET — Program

Additional information:
Fix the Court supports prospective 18-year term limits and biennial appointments at SCOTUS and has since 2015.

Term limits was not one of FTC’s “fixes” at its 2014 founding, since back then the reform was favored by conservatives by big margins but not so much by liberals — and the whole point of FTC was to advance bipartisan fixes. After intensive research in early 2015 on which modernizations to the Court the public most wanted to see, term limits was added to the roster.

In 2016, FTC began working with other court reformers on draft legislation, and that effort directly led to the introduction of what’s believed to have been Congress’ first-ever SCOTUS term limits bill (i.e., not an amendment resolution): Rep. Ro Khanna’s Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act of 2020. The measure was also introduced in 2022 and 2023.