A quiet week of strong opinions: the most-voted polls ranged from airline etiquette to whether your town needs a server farm. Here's where Groundbeat voters landed.
❓ The open question: Supreme Court term limits
The Constitution says federal judges "shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour" (Article III), which in practice has meant for as long as they like. Up to 1970 a justice served about 15 years on average. After that it was closer to 25 (Linda Greenhouse's figures, as of 2005).
So we asked: should U.S. Supreme Court justices have term limits?
The cases
JE_Thomas would start over: "The Supreme Court system should be completely revamped by Constitutional amendment including term limits and a direct and clean path to remove sitting justices."
Dense1 mostly wants a calendar: "I would prefer the end date of a justices term was well understood and predictable up front."
dagman would leave the text alone: "Let's just stick to the Constitution: they “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour”. We should never deviate from that foundational guidance lightly."
Scaramouche splits the founders on that: "James Madison's guidance, yes; Alexander Hamilton's guidance, hell no."
bleurose51 is fine with long, as long as it ends: "I support VERY long terms, up to 20 years, but always fixed, nothing that can be "forever"."
dagman doubts that changes much: "It looks like the average tenure of a Supreme Court justice over the last 50 years is about 26 years, so the impact of a 20-year term might not be that great. Is it worth deviating from the Constitution for that?"
Scaramouche, on a companion poll about expanding the Court, would make turnover automatic: "Term-limits and regular, involuntary rotation (i.e. each POTUS gets to appoint a set number of judges, each time a new one is appointed the seniormost gets knocked off whether it wants to retire or not) is what the SCOTUS needs, not this." (Poll 1622)
What the desk adds
The case for life tenure does go back to Hamilton. In Federalist 78 he called tenure during good behavior "the best expedient which can be devised in any government," since a judge with a secure seat has less reason to bend to whoever's in power.
Whether this takes an amendment is still open. A House bill from Reps. Khanna and Beyer would do it by ordinary law, with 18-year terms, a nomination every odd year, and current justices exempt. Manchin and Welch proposed the same 18 years as a constitutional amendment. Neither has moved.
Outside the site the idea polls well. In an Annenberg survey from September 2025, 69% of Americans favored a set number of years over lifetime appointments (the Brennan Center's roundup).
Next week's open question
Should political robocalls and texts be banned? Tuesday should thin them out for a while. So far the thread turns on why commercial calls can be blocked and candidates' can't, and on how soon the 2028 texts start.
Not in my backyard
On a new data center in the community, 79% of voters said no, with just 6% in favor. Few topics this week drew that lopsided a response. See the live results →
34 votes · 9 from members
The four-day week has fans
75% of voters said most companies should switch to a four-day workweek. Only 16% said no. See the live results →
32 votes · 7 from members
Streaming fatigue
As prices climb, 75% of voters said streaming services are no longer worth it; just 11% still think they are. See the live results →
28 votes · 5 from members
Recline away
52% of voters said reclining your airplane seat is fine, while 28% called it rude and 21% said it depends on the flight length. See the live results →
58 votes · 8 from members
Manners for the machines
On whether people say please and thank you to AI chatbots, 36% of voters said almost always and 27% said sometimes — with another 27% saying they don't use them at all. See the live results →
22 votes · 7 from members
💬 From the discussions
Whether a security promise on a brain-computer chip would be good enough.
“...And I'd need a guarantee written in the manufacturer's own blood that NOBODY and NOTHING could access it but me.” — Scaramouche
“Means they do the best they can, no guarantees. Not exactly reassuring.” — dagman
Whether Marco Rubio is a steadying influence in the administration or something worse.
“I see him as a fairly thoughtful pragmatist navigating a tricky path through tumultuous times.” — dagman
“"The sanest narrative possible on the chaos"...that's exactly the problem. Chaos isn't what's wrong with the world; the desire for Order is.” — Scaramouche
If any of these got a rise out of you, the polls are still open.
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