President Joe Biden outlined his Supreme Court reform plan on Monday in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
He called for term limits for Supreme Court justices and an enforceable ethics code while criticizing some high-profile recent rulings.
“What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,” Biden argued.
The op-ed, which confirms a report from earlier this month that said Biden was eyeing such a proposal, is a turning point in Biden’s posture toward the Supreme Court.
In the past, the president has been critical of the court but stopped short of calling for major reforms, as the Deseret News previously reported.
Biden’s Supreme Court reform plan
Biden’s op-ed for The Washington Post outlines “three bold reforms” that he believes would boost public trust in the Supreme Court.
Biden on presidential immunity
Biden’s first proposal is to pass a constitutional amendment that would supersede the Supreme Court’s June ruling on presidential immunity.
The ruling came in a case brought by former President Donald Trump, who was seeking to block an election interference case against him.
The court did not accept all of Trump’s arguments, but it did agree that presidents enjoy broad immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts while in office, as the Deseret News reported at the time.
In his op-ed, Biden argued that the ruling put the country in danger.
“I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is Above the Law Amendment. It would make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office,” he wrote.
Supreme Court term limits
The president’s second proposal centers on term limits for Supreme Court justices. Biden said that the current system of appointing justices to lifetime seats is problematic and out of step with other constitutional democracies.
“Term limits would help ensure that the court’s membership changes with some regularity. That would make timing for court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary. It would reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come. 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,” he wrote.
Supreme Court ethics code
Biden’s third and final proposal is focused on the Supreme Court’s ethics code. Although the justices do agree to follow an ethics code right now, there is no outside oversight to ensure that they’re holding one another accountable.
In the op-ed, Biden argued that the code of conduct for the Supreme Court should be binding.
“Justices should be required 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,” he wrote.
Will Biden change the Supreme Court?
All three of Biden’s proposals for Supreme Court reform would require more than an executive order to put in place. It’s unlikely that any of the three will get a serious hearing in Congress in the near future.
“The calls ... are largely aspirational at this stage given the long odds they face in implementation,” The Washington Post reported in its article about the op-ed.
Biden is expected to speak about his Supreme Court reform plans on Monday during an event at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin. The event celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.
“We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power. We can and must restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy. In America, no one is above the law. In America, the people rule,” Biden wrote in the op-ed.