President Biden speaks to the media on July 1 following the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.
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Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
President Biden, in an op-ed Monday, said “no one,” including “a justice on the United States Supreme Court” is above the law, as he called for term limits and a code of ethics applicable for Supreme Court judges in what would be radical changes to the High Court and the way it operates.
“I have great respect for our institutions and the separation of powers,” Biden he wrote in the op-ed in the Washington Post. “What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines public trust in court decisions, including those that have an impact on personal liberties. We are now in a violation.”
Biden is expected to ask for the changes to the court during remarks later in the day at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. He is expected to offer his support to a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service of the Supreme Court.
In addition, he plans to ask Congress to pass binding, enforceable ethics and conduct rules that require high court judges 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 is also expected to ask for a constitutional amendment that would limit the broad immunity that presidents now enjoy after a recent Supreme Court decision.
High Court judges enjoy a lifetime appointment and can decide for themselves whether to adhere to the ethics rules newly adopted by the court. Scrutiny of the court has increased amid scandals involving Justice Clarence Thomas, who took free trips and received gifts from a conservative mega-donor, and Justice Samuel Alito, whose wife flew two flags associated with the far-right movement loyal to former President Donald Trump.
The proposals are a long shot because a constitutional amendment or congressional action — two routes that would be needed — are nearly impossible in the current political climate. But the plans themselves mark a sea change for Biden who had previously resisted any change on the court. Although it is unclear whether Biden can move forward on the issue in his remaining months in office, the White House believes the issue of Supreme Court reform polls well among independent voters, voters Republicans and a wide swath of important demographic groups.
In 2021, shortly after the inauguration, Biden established a presidential commission on the Supreme Court, keeping a campaign promise he made when he repeatedly insisted on whether to expand the Supreme Court to pack it with more aligned justices with his world view. Candidate Biden said he opposed expanding the court but preferred the type of bipartisan commission created by the White House.
In December of that year, the panel – including the legal gray eminence – published a report that said Congress has the power to enlarge the court, but the panel did not take the position of doing so. Regarding term limits, he seemed to suggest that a constitutional amendment was probably needed, and he pointed to the practical difficulties of implementing term limits at the same time that there are judges in session with life terms on the court.
