WASHINGTON – WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden revealed a long-awaited proposal for changes to the U.S. Supreme Court, calling on Congress to establish term limits and an enforceable code of ethics for the court’s nine justices. He is also pushing lawmakers to ratify a constitutional amendment that limits presidential immunity.
The White House on Monday detailed the contours of Biden’s judicial proposal, which appears unlikely to be approved by a narrowly divided Congress with just 99 days to go. Election day.
Still, Democrats hope it will help focus voters as they consider their choices in a tight election. The presumptive Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, who sought to frame her race against former Republican President Donald Trump as “a choice between freedom and chaos”, quickly endorsed Biden’s proposal. She added that the changes are necessary because “there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court.”
The White House seeks to capitalize on growing outrage among Democrats toward the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, by issuing opinions that historic decisions annulled on the right to abortion and federal regulatory powers that lasted decades.
Liberals have also expressed dismay at revelations about what they consider to be questionable relationships and rulings by some members of the court’s conservative wing that suggest its impartiality is compromised.
“I have great respect for our institutions and the separation of powers,” argues Biden in a Washington Post op-ed published Monday. “What is happening now is not normal and undermines public confidence in court decisions, including those that affect personal freedoms.
Harris, in a statement, said the proposed reforms “will help restore trust in the Court, strengthen our democracy and ensure that no one is above the law.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called the proposal a “dangerous move” that would be “dead on arrival in the House.”
The president planned to speak about his proposal on Monday, during a speech at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.
Biden is calling for the elimination of lifetime court appointments. He says Congress should pass legislation to establish a system in which the sitting president would nominate a judge every two years to spend 18 years serving on the court. He argues that term limits would help ensure that court members change with some regularity and add a measure of predictability to the appointment process.
He also wants Congress to pass legislation establishing a code of judicial ethics that would require judges to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activities and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.
Biden is also asking Congress to pass a constitutional amendment that would reverse the recent Supreme Court ruling historic ruling on immunity that certain former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution.
That decision prolonged the delay in Washington’s criminal case against Trump on charges he conspired to reverse his defeat in the 2020 presidential election and the prospects that the former president could be tried before the November elections practically ended.
Most Americans supported some form of age limit for Supreme Court justices August 2023 AP-NORC Poll. Two-thirds wanted Supreme Court justices to be required to retire by a certain age. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to favor a mandatory retirement age, 77% to 61%. Americans of all age groups tend to agree with the desirability of age limits — those 60 and older were as likely as any other age group to be in favor of such a limit for Supreme Court justices.
The first three justices who would potentially be affected by term limits are on the right. Justice Clarence Thomas has been on the court for nearly 33 years. Chief Justice John Roberts served for 19 years, and Justice Samuel Alito served for 18.
Supreme Court justices served an average of 17 years from its founding until 1970, said Gabe Roth, executive director of the group Fix the Court. Since 1970, the average has been about 28 years. Both conservative and liberal politicians have advocated term limits.
“If judges have that much power, then they should be individuals who reflect America as it is today, not the America of 30 or 40 years ago, the dead hand of the president who appointed them still influencing policy,” Roth said.
However, an enforcement mechanism for the high court’s code of ethics could more closely align Supreme Court justices with other federal judges, who are subject to a disciplinary system in which anyone can file a complaint and have it reviewed. An investigation may result in censure and reprimand. Last week, Justice Elena Kagan publicly called for the creation of a way to enforce the new code of ethicsbecoming the first judge to do so.
Still, when it comes to the Supreme Court, creating a code of ethics enforcement mechanism is not as easy as it seems.
The attorney general has always had the power to enforce violations of financial and gift disclosure rules, but has apparently never used that power against federal judges, said Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert at NYU School of Law.
The body that oversees lower court judges, however, is headed by Roberts, “who may be reluctant to use any power the conference has against his colleagues,” Gillers wrote in an email.
The last time Congress ratified an amendment to the Constitution was 32 years ago. The 27th Amendment, ratified in 1992, states that Congress can pass a bill changing the pay of members of the House and Senate, but such a change cannot take effect before the upcoming November House elections.
Trump condemned judicial reform as a desperate attempt by Democrats to “play referee.”
“The Democrats are trying to interfere in the Presidential Election and destroy our Justice System by attacking their Political Opponent, ME, and our Honorable Supreme Court. We must fight for our fair and independent courts and protect our country,” Trump posted on his Truth Social website this month.
There have been growing questions surrounding the court’s ethics following revelations about some of the judges, including that Thomas accepted luxury trips from a Republican Party mega-donor.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was appointed during the Obama administration, faced scrutiny after it came to light that her staff frequently prodded public institutions that welcomed her to buy copies of your memoirs or children’s books.
Alito has rejected calls to step aside from Supreme Court cases involving Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection defendants, despite uproar over provocative flags displayed at their homes, which some believe suggest sympathy for people facing charges for breaking into the US Capitol to keep Trump in power. Alito says the flags were raised by his wife.
Leonard Leo, co-president of the conservative and libertarian Federalist Society, said Biden’s proposed changes are about “Democrats destroying a court they don’t agree with.”
“No conservative judge has made any decision in any important case that has surprised anyone, so let’s stop pretending this is undue influence,” said Leo, who helped the Trump administration with the selections and confirmations of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Democrats say Biden’s effort will help highlight recent high court rulings, including the 2022 ruling removing women’s constitutional protections for abortionby the conservative-majority court that includes three Trump-appointed judges.
The announcement marks a notable development for Biden, who, as a candidate, was wary of calls for high court reform. But over the course of his presidency, he became increasingly vocal about his belief that the court had abandoned the dominant constitutional interpretation.
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Associated Press writers Mark Sherman, Seung Min Kim, Amelia Thomson DeVeaux, Lindsay Whitehurst and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.
