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29 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 769 (2005-2006)
Term Limits for the Supreme Court: Life Tenure Reconsidered

handle is hein.journals/hjlpp29 and id is 777 raw text is: TERM LIMITS FOR THE SUPREME COURT: LIFE TENURE RECONSIDERED STEVEN G. CALABRESI & JAMES LINDGREN** INTRODUCTION ............................................................ 770 I. THE NEED FOR REFORM: THE EXPANSION OF LIFE TENURE ..................................................... 777 A. The Expansion of Life Tenure D ocum ented ................................................... 777 B. Periodization and Related Empirical Issues ............................................................... 789 C. Explaining the Trends in Life Tenure ......... 800 D. Consequences of the Expansion of Life Tenure ..................................................... 809 1. Reduced Democratic Accountability ...809 2. Increased Politicization of the Confirmation Process ............................. 813 * George C. Dix Professor of Law, Northwestern University. An earlier version of this Article appeared as a chapter in REFORMING THE COURT: TERM LIMITS FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICES (Roger C. Cramton & Paul D. Carrington eds., 2006) and was presented at a conference at Duke Law School in the spring of 2005 and at the American Political Science Association Annual Meet- ing in September 2005. This version includes more data on the pattern of Supreme Court tenure and succession and additional responses to comments and criticisms from other scholars. We wish to thank Jeff Oldham of the Northwestern Law School Class of 2003 for the very substantial contributions he made to this Article as a student. The idea for this project intitiated with Professor Calabresi, a first draft was written by Jeff Oldham, the data were collected and analyzed by James Lindgren, and all subsequent drafts have been edited and partially rewritten by Professors Calabresi and Lindgren. Professors Calabresi and Lindgren had wanted Jeff Old- ham to be listed as a co-author, but Jeff declined for professional reasons. We are also grateful for the helpful comments of Al Alschuler, Akhil Amar, Charles Fried, Richard Fallon, Philip Hamburger, John Harrison, Gary Lawson, Daniel Lev, Saik- rishna Prakash, David Presser, and Ward Farnsworth. ** Benjamin Mazur Research Professor, Northwestern University. Please note that all calculations and discussions in this Article are current as of January 31, 2006, the day when Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation took effect and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. was sworn in as her replacement. The only exception, our discussion of mental decrepitude, infra Part I.D.3, reflects the state of affairs when this manuscript was accepted in the summer of 2005.

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