COURT FESTER
President Biden’s big new proposal to reform the Supreme Court puts him squarely in line with widespread criticism of its recent rightward lunge. But his solutions, popular as they may be, hardly look easy to implement.
- Biden unveiled three big ideas aimed at taking the high court down a notch on Monday. He called for 18-year term limits for justices, a binding code of ethics, and finally, a constitutional amendment declaring former presidents aren’t immune from criminal prosecution. That last one is a dig aimed straight at the court’s notorious recent ruling declaring disgraced former President Trump, and all presidents, largely above criminal law. “I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court,” Biden wrote in an OpEd in the Washington Post.
- Biden’s plan looks like good politics in an election year when many people say they’re distressed about where the court is being taken by the right-wing nominees of disgraced former President Trump. The court’s conservative supermajority has been on a rampage, overturning Roe v Wade, gutting federal agencies’ rule-making power, and more. The court has also been rocked by ethics scandals, primarily centered around Justice Clarence Thomas’ insatiable urge to hang out with billionaires in secret. Six-in-ten Americans now disapprove of the court, according to one recent poll. A similar number supports putting term limits.
- Little wonder, then, that Vice President Kamala Harris gave her blessing to Biden’s ideas. The reforms are needed because “there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court,” Harris said.
The catch is that these proposals will take more than a big Democratic win this November to become reality.
- Some experts say term limits would require a constitutional amendment — which means support from two-thirds of the House and Senate, along with three-quarters of the states. “I strongly support 18 year term limits for Supreme Court justices, but I believe that this would require a constitutional amendment, especially if applied to current justices,” UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky told the LA Times.
- The court has no current plans to add an enforcement mechanism to its recently-adopted code of conduct. Progressive Justice Elena Kagan recently expressed support for creating a committee of judges to examine potential violations of the ethics code. But she added that she was really just speaking for herself.
“This is one person’s view, and that’s all it is,” Kagan said.
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