Oct 25 (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of legal experts including a federal appeals court judge and a former U.S. solicitor general on Wednesday threw their support behind 18-year term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices, calling the proposal a "vital reform" that would reduce partisanship and improve the judiciary's overall reputation.
The group in a report released by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences argued that Congress should end life tenure among the justices through a statute and empower the U.S. president to appoint new members to the high court every two years.
The 11-member group convened by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based scholarly society to study how to implement term limits included U.S. Circuit Judge Diane Wood, a member of Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and appointee of Democratic former President Bill Clinton.
Others included Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School who served as U.S. solicitor general under Republican former President Ronald Reagan, and Akhil Reed Amar, a prominent constitutional law professor at Yale Law School.