President Joe Biden has called for sweeping reforms to the Supreme Court, including term limits, a binding code of conduct for its nine justices and a constitutional amendment that would limit presidential immunity.
Biden, citing ‘recent ethics scandals’ involving justices and high court rulings that ‘overturned long-established legal precedents protecting fundamental rights’, has called on Congress to pass three major reforms in a bid to ‘restore trust and accountability’ in America’s democratic institutions.
The White House on Monday detailed the contours of Biden’s court proposal, noting how the Democrat believes ‘no one – neither the President nor the Supreme Court – is above the law’.
The President will officially propose the changes today during a speech in Austin, Texas, however his proposals appears to have little chance of being approved by a deeply-divided Congress with just 99 days to go before Election Day.
Regardless, Democrats hope Biden’s proposal will help to focus voters as they consider their choices in the tight presidential election.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has sought to frame her race against Republican former President Donald Trump as ‘a choice between freedom and chaos’.
Biden, in an op-ed published in the Washington Post, seemingly slammed the high court as he argued that America is facing a ‘crisis of confidence’ in the its democratic systems.
‘This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one,’ Biden penned in his op-ed.
He added: ‘I have great respect for our institutions and separation of powers. What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.’
Biden is calling for doing away with lifetime appointments to the court. He says Congress should pass legislation to establish a system in which the sitting president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in service on the court.
He argues term limits would help ensure that court membership changes with some regularity and adds a measure of predictability to the nomination process.
He also wants Congress to pass legislation establishing a code of ethics for justices that would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.
Biden has also urged Congress to pass a constitutional amendment reversing the Supreme Court’s recent landmark immunity ruling that determined former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution.
It comes after the Supreme Court ruled in July that Trump cannot be prosecuted for actions that were within his constitutional powers as president in a landmark decision recognizing for the first time any form of presidential immunity from prosecution.
The decision extended the delay in the Washington criminal case against Trump on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss and all but ended prospects the former president could be tried before the November election.
Biden’s push for reforms comes a week after Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed Harris to square off against Republican presidential candidate Trump in November.
It also follows the Supreme Court’s ruling that there is no Constitutional right to abortion and other decisions that blocked Biden’s agenda on immigration, student loans, vaccine mandates and climate change.
The White House in a statement said, ‘Biden and Vice President Harris look forward to working with Congress and empowering the American people to prevent the abuse of Presidential power, restore faith in the Supreme Court, and strengthen the guardrails of democracy.’
