Janice R. Andrews
WASHINGTON — On Monday, President Joe Biden demanded significant reforms to the Supreme Court, including a constitutional amendment that would restrict presidential immunity, set term limits for justices, and establish an ethical code that would be binding.
In a Washington Post opinion piece, Biden stressed that “no one is above the law.”
“Not the president of the United States,” he stated in his letter. “Not a justice on the United States Supreme Court. Nobody.”
This audacious action comes after the contentious Supreme Court decision in July that said presidents are immune from prosecution for “official acts” committed while in office. This decision started with a case involving Donald Trump, the former president. The court did make it clear that presidents might still face legal action for illegal activity that occurs outside of government.
Biden emphasized his vast expertise supervising Supreme Court nominees throughout his tenure as a senator, vice president, and president. Biden has a lengthy political career that includes 36 years in the U.S. Senate.
“What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,” he stated. “We now stand in a breach.”
Even with Biden’s emphasis on urgency, these legislative ideas will encounter substantial obstacles in a divided Congress. In order to overcome a Republican filibuster, the bills would require 60 votes in the Senate, which would be difficult given the present political climate.
With three justices nominated by Trump and one by Biden (Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson), the Supreme Court now has a 6-3 conservative majority.
The “No One Is Above the Law Amendment,” as proposed by Biden, would specifically say that merely because someone has served as president before does not grant them immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction, or sentence.
Biden suggests that the Supreme Court implement term limits, drawing a comparison to the presidency, where they were instituted more than 75 years ago. According to him, doing so would guarantee that the court’s membership rotates on a regular basis and stop any one presidency from having an excessive amount of influence for many years.
Biden favors a system in which the president picks a justice every two years, with each justice spending eighteen years of active duty on the Supreme Court, according to a fact sheet issued by the White House.
The establishment of an obligatory code of conduct for the Supreme Court is one of Biden’s other main reform requests. Justices would have to abide by this code, which would also mandate that they declare gifts, abstain from political action in public, and withdraw from cases in which they or their wives had a financial or other conflict of interest.
The demand for an obligatory code of ethics is especially pertinent in light of current events. Because of perceived ethical transgressions and political prejudice, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., filed articles of impeachment against Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito of the Supreme Court in July.
After it was discovered that Justice Thomas had concealed millions of dollars in expensive trips and other presents from friends who were billionaires, he came under fire last year. “Justice Thomas and Alito’s repeated failure over decades to disclose that they received millions of dollars in gifts from individuals with business before the court is explicitly against the law,” stated Ocasio-Cortez.
Later today, when Biden celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, it is anticipated that he will go into additional detail about these suggestions.
The country is keeping a close eye on Biden’s recommendations to see if these broad reforms can gain support and maybe change the composition of the nation’s top court.
