Three alternatives for fixing U.S. Supreme Court

Re: No to packing the Supreme Court, yes to 18-year term limits, Editorial, Sept. 18

As executive director of Fix the Court, an organization dedicated to modernizing and depoliticizing our federal courts, I worked with the congressional authors of the 18-year Supreme Court term limits bill that the Sun-Sentinel wrote about favorably on Sept. 17.

Term limits sound good, the editorial noted, but what to do with sitting justices? There are three compelling possibilities.

One is to keep them on but only allow them to perform administrative tasks. (Not a great idea.) Alternative No. 2 is keep them on and only add the new term-limited ones to the bench as old ones retire. That means the new justices might wait around for a dozen years, and then serve only for a handful before their 18 years were up. Three, make the sitting justices and new term-limited ones both full justices and the court will change size for a time until the perfect nine-justice, 18-year term rotation is achieved.

Earlier this year, my organization commissioned a poll: Given the choice between life tenure and the potential for a few transitional years of more than nine justices, which do you prefer? Encouragingly, Democrats, Independents and Republicans all prefer the latter.

The way we appoint Supreme Court justices brings out the worst in our politics. The most recent confirmations bear that out. There’s a better way — an idea endorsed by both conservative and liberal scholars — that now exists in the form of a bill in Congress, HR 5140. I hope your representatives in the Florida congressional delegation consider adding their support.

Gabe Roth, Brooklyn, N.Y.