In what is being seen by legal experts as a “major” and “remarkable” change in his positions, President Joe Biden on Monday issued a three-point plan to reform the U.S. Supreme Court, after years of ethics scandals, largely by conservative justices, some of which have been called actual violations of federal law. President Biden had previously been opposed to certain court reforms.
“On top of dangerous and extreme decisions that overturn settled legal precedents — including Roe v. Wade — the court is mired in a crisis of ethics,” President Biden warned in a Washington Post op-ed. “Scandals involving several justices have caused the public to question the court’s fairness and independence, which are essential to faithfully carrying out its mission of equal justice under the law. For example, undisclosed gifts to justices from individuals with interests in cases before the court, as well as conflicts of interest connected with Jan. 6 insurrectionists, raise legitimate questions about the court’s impartiality.”
“Already our greatest modern president,” wrote constitutional law scholar and Harvard University Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe, President Biden “earns our gratitude yet again by calling for these essential reforms to #SCOTUS — and by moving to heal the wound this rogue Court inflicted on our Constitution when it put the presidency above the law.”
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President Biden’s three-point plan calls for a constitutional amendment “that makes clear no President is above the law or immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office,” The White House says in an announcement. That amendment would be in direct response to the Supreme Court’s decision surprising many legal experts granting presidents broad, and “absolute” immunity for “official acts” while in office.
The President is also calling for term limits for Supreme Court justices, with each justice serving up to 18 years and each president appointing a new justice every two years.
“Term limits would help ensure that the Court’s membership changes with some regularity; make timing for Court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary; and reduce the chance that any single Presidency imposes undue influence for generations to come,” The White House says.
And finally, President Biden is calling for an enforceable code of ethics for Supreme Court justices “that 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.
Wendy Weiser, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice, called Biden’s plan, “a remarkable and historical step forward.”
“No one should have public power for so long; no one should be the judge in their own case; and no one should be above the law,” she wrote.
Notably absent from the President’s plan: some had expected him to endorse expanding the number of justices on the Court, from nine to at least 12. That would reflect the 12 judicial circuits, as well as the tremendous expansion in U.S. population and demographics since the last time the Court’s size was altered: well over a century ago, in 1869.
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Some Democratic U.S. Senators support expanding the Courtvia the Judiciary Act.
The New Republic’s Matt Ford observes, “Biden’s SCOTUS reform op-ed is curiously opaque on whether he supports term limits via amendment or legislation, which is the big split among advocates.”
Attorney Tristan Snell, who successfully prosecuted New York State’s $25 million civil case against Trump University, applauded the President’s three-count plan and called for a few additions: “Wonderful news — and then let’s add 4 more justices and a maximum age of 75.”
After Vice President Kamala Harris, the de-facto Democratic presidential nominee endorsed Biden’s plan, NYU professor of law Melissa Murray called it “Huge.”
Professor of law Leah Litman, who co-hosts a podcast on the Supreme Court with Professor Murray, says, “let’s take a moment to appreciate that it’s a BFD for a sitting Democratic President, a long time institutionalist who was opposed to court reform *four years ago* has now publicly endorsed court reform.”
“Biden’s change,” she adds, “is a testament both to how the current Court’s egregious behavior is offputting to normie Dems – and causes them to revisit their positions – and to the many organizers, commentators, etc beating the court reform drum.”
“This is major,” declared Maya Sen, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “Just a few years ago, Biden was against any kind of Court reform.”
President Biden’s call for reform has the backing of, among others, Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, Constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis,
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