Democrats push Supreme Court term limits

Today is retired Justice Anthony Kennedy’s 90th birthday. Kennedy joined the Supreme Court in 1988 and retired in 2018. Morning Reads Senator Whitehouse aims to keep Supreme Court ethics conversation alive with term limits bill Benjamin S. Weiss, Courthouse News Service In an interview with Courthouse News Service, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, defended his decision to “reintroduce a bill that would set term limits for justices of the U.S. Supreme Court” and that is “highly unlikely” to become law while Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House. He said “his bill was less about legislative outcomes and more about keeping the issue of term limits top of mind for the American public.” Whitehouse’s bill, if passed as written, “would, among other things, introduce staggered, 18-year term limits for new justices appointed to the bench. ... Under the law, only the nine most junior justices on the bench would rule on cases – and after a term of 18 years, a justice would be deemed retired.” U.S. Secret Service official: ‘Threat environment is the highest we’ve ever seen’ Dan Mangan, CNBC On Wednesday, a senior U.S. Secret Service official told reporters during a background briefing “that the ‘threat environment’ for the agency’s protectees, who include President Donald Trump, ‘is the highest we’ve ever seen,’” according to CNBC. “There have been about 10,000 cases involving threats to government officials, including Supreme Court justices, so far in 2026,” per the official. “That represents a 40% increase in such cases over the same period last year.” CNBC noted that Wednesday’s briefing came just a week after “Justice Amy Coney Barrett told a House subcommittee that the threat level to her and other federal judges ‘is really high.’” Supreme Court faces scrutiny over potential ‘loopholes’ in prediction markets policy John Fritze, CNN While testifying with Justice Elena Kagan before a Senate subcommittee on July 14, “Justice Amy Coney Barrett had a fast answer when she was asked ... if the Supreme Court had done anything to address the meteoric rise of prediction markets – and the ethical predicament they present for the judiciary,” according to CNN. “That’s already covered,” Barrett said, and her response was echoed by Kagan. But their comments “did little to quiet a growing pressure campaign to push the high court to explicitly ban employees from trading on sites like Kalshi and Polymarket – where users can bet on everything from the outcome of specific appeals to whether ‘any Supreme Court justice will be charged’ with a federal crime.” “It is vitally important that the American public have trust in the courts, and taking further action to create a clear standard is critical to regaining that trust,” wrote Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, in a letter he sent to the Supreme Court on Tuesday. Trump’s Trade Negotiator Doubles Down on Tariffs Before Global Duties Expire Ana Swanson, The New York Times During a Wednesday appearance before Congress, Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, told lawmakers “that a ‘national emergency’ on trade persisted and that the administration remained intent on using tariffs to transform the economy,” according to The New York Times. After the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in February, “[t]he specific authorities this administration is using have changed, but the trade strategy has not,” Greer said. “We are committed to continuing to use tariffs and to negotiate deals to support the reindustrialization of our economy, protect American workers and increase their wages and shrink our trade deficit.” On Site The live blog comments that stuck with us By Nora Collins One of SCOTUSblog’s most popular features is our live blogging during major oral arguments and opinion hand down days. We thought it might help relieve the summer doldrums to dig out some of the best lines posted in live blogs during the 2025-26 term. The case for Callais By Brian Fitzpatrick In his AV Ristorante column, Brian Fitzpatrick defended Louisiana v. Callais, in which the court held that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act could not be used to require Louisiana to consider skin color when it drew its voting districts. Fitzpatrick also reflected more broadly on why it is controversial in academia to hold such a view. Checking in on the Justices’ Summers A few Closer Looks ago, we revisited Justice Elena Kagan’s 2024 observation that, because of the emergency docket, the court’s summers had stopped resembling summers. We wondered whether this year would break the pattern. The results so far? Too soon to say. As SCOTUSblog readers are likely aware, the largest departure from the traditional summer lull came on July 14, when Kagan and Justice Amy Coney Barrett appeared before the House of Representatives and the Senate – marking the first time members of the court had testified before Congress since 2019. As Amy wrote about, the occasion was the court’s fiscal request to help fund security, with Barrett telling the House panel that the threat level facing her and other federal judges “is really high.” The same evening, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sat for a conversation at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Davis Concert Hall, hosted by veteran reporter Robert Hannon as part of the school’s Summer Sessions program. Jackson opened by reading from her memoir before a crowd of roughly 900 and spoke on the practice of dissenting, calling it “extraordinary” that the system “allows for people who disagree, even at the highest levels, to explain their disagreement … in the hopes that, at some point in time, people will agree with their view.” Unfortunately, the night ended abruptly after a staffer approached Jackson mid-Q&A about a personal emergency. The Miami Herald reported on Friday that her father, Johnny Brown, died on Wednesday. Jackson is also scheduled to speak in Chicago today. She is slated for a mainstage fireside chat with former U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar at the National Association of Women Lawyers annual meeting. As for Jackson’s colleagues, Justice Neil Gorsuch presumably began teaching at George Mason’s National Security and Separation of Powers summer program in Prague on July 19, and next Tuesday, July 28, will participate virtually in a fireside chat at The Reagan Foundation Center on Civility and Democracy’s inaugural Reagan Civility & Democracy Forum in Washington, D.C. Per the Center, the “forum brings together students, young professionals and national leaders to remind and retrain ourselves how to disagree and still work together to strengthen our democratic republic.” Back on June 30, in order to promote his new-ish book, Gorsuch appeared with his co-author and former clerk Janie Nitze at a Federalist Society event at George Washington’s Mount Vernon in Mt. Vernon, Virginia, per Fix The Court, and on July 1 appeared (again with Nitze) at Colonial Williamsburg in a discussion moderated by Colonial Williamsburg CEO Carly Fiorina. Gorsuch also signed books at the event. While there isn’t much (yet) publicly available for the justices’ appearances in August, several have scheduled events in September – Justice Brett Kavanaugh is expected to speak on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks at Notre Dame’s Jeanie Poole O’Shaughnessy Memorial Lecture on Sept. 11 and to keynote the Catholic Bar Association’s annual conference in Dallas on Sept. 26, where he will receive the St. Thomas More Award. Jackson is scheduled to give the Olga M. Jonasson Lecture – a “reflection of the capacity of women to reach academic pinnacles” – at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress at the Washington Convention Center the following day. SCOTUS Quote MR. FLEMING: “Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court: The Court has been offered two ways to approach this case, a short way and a long way. We believe we prevail under both and I will address both, but I would start with the short way, which we think is the right way. This is a case about appellate jurisdiction –” JUSTICE KENNEDY: “You know the way to our hearts.” (Laughter.) MR. FLEMING: “I try to please, Justice Kennedy.” — Mata v. Lynch (2015) Kelsey Dallas is SCOTUSblog's managing editor and the primary author of the SCOTUStoday newsletter. Nora is an editorial assistant at SCOTUSblog, based in Washington, D.C. Recommended Citation: Kelsey Dallas & Nora Collins, Democrats push Supreme Court term limits, SCOTUSblog (Jul. 23, 2026, 9:00 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/07/democrats-push-supreme-court-term-limits/