The most common version of this reform contemplates justices serving nonrenewable 18-year terms, staggered so that one term ends every two years. This would mean that presidents would get to nominate new justices in the first and third years of their own administrations. Retirements and nominations would occur like clockwork. The result would be a court whose membership, at any given time, would reflect the selections of the past 4 1/2 presidential administrations.

Because Article 3 of the Constitution confers life tenure upon all federal judges, term limits would likely require a constitutional amendment. Yes, constitutional amendments are hard to enact. We have not amended our Constitution since 1992, and we have done so only once in the past half-century. But there is reason — even in these politically polarized times — to believe that constitutional reform is possible.

To start, multiple voices from across the ideological spectrum have endorsed the concept of term limits on Supreme Court justices. One of the earliest proponents of the concept was Northwestern professor Steven Calabresi, one of the co-founders of the conservative Federalist Society. Other academics of all stripes — from conservative luminary Michael McConnell (a former federal judge and my colleague at Stanford) to Erwin Chemerinsky, a leading liberal and dean of Berkeley Law School — have since joined the chorus. Various think tanks and their scholars — from Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute to Ilya Shapiro, now of the Manhattan Institute, to the Center for American Progress — have also backed the notion. And three justices themselves — Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Elena Kagan and former Justice Stephen Breyer — have suggested at various points in their careers that they see potential benefits in the idea.