President Joe Biden has unveiled a long-awaited proposal for changes at the U.S. Supreme Court, calling on Congress to establish term limits and an enforceable ethics code for the court’s nine justices. He’s also pressing lawmakers to ratify a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity.
The White House on July 29 detailed the contours of Mr. Biden’s court proposal, one that appears to have little chance of being approved by a closely divided Congress with just 99 days to go before Election Day.
Still, Democrats hope it’ll help focus voters as they consider their choices in a tight election. The likely Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has sought to frame her race against Republican ex-President Donald Trump as “a choice between freedom and chaos,” said the court’s fairness had been called into question following recent decisions.
The White House is looking to tap into the growing outrage among Democrats about the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, issuing opinions that overturned landmark decisions on abortion rights and federal regulatory powers that stood for decades.
Liberals also have expressed dismay over revelations about what they say are questionable relationships and decisions by some members of the conservative wing of the court that suggest their impartiality is compromised.
“I have great respect for our institutions and separation of powers,” Mr. Biden argues in a Washington Post op-ed published July 29. “What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.”
Ms. Harris later issued a statement saying the American people must have confidence in a Supreme Court blighted by ethics scandals and decisions overturning long-standing precedent. She said the reforms being proposed “will help to restore confidence in the Court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law.”
The president planned to speak about his proposal later July 29 during an address at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.
Mr. Biden is calling for doing away with lifetime appointments to the court. He says Congress should pass legislation to establish a system in which the sitting president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in service on the court. He argues term limits would help ensure that court membership changes with some regularity and add a measure of predictability to the nomination process.
He also wants Congress to pass legislation establishing a court code of ethics that would 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.
Mr. Biden also is calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment reversing the Supreme Court’s recent landmark immunity ruling that determined former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution.
That decision extended the delay in the Washington criminal case against Trump on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss and all but ended prospects the former president could be tried before the November election.
Polls indicate Americans support limiting how long justices serve on the nation’s highest court. Last summer, a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found 67% of Americans, including 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans, support a proposal to set a specific number of years that justices serve instead of life terms.
The first three justices who would potentially be affected by term limits are on the right. Justice Clarence Thomas has been on the court for nearly 33 years. Chief Justice John Roberts has served for 19 years, and Justice Samuel Alito has served for 18.
Supreme Court justices served an average of about 17 years from the founding until 1970, said Gabe Roth, executive director of the group Fix the Court. Since 1970, the average has been about 28 years. Both conservative and liberal politicians alike have espoused term limits.
“If justices have this much power, then they should be individuals who reflect America as it currently is, not the America of 30 or 40 years ago, the dead hand of the president who appointed them still influencing policy,” Mr. Roth said.
An enforcement mechanism for the high court’s code of ethics, meanwhile, could bring the Supreme Court justices more in line with other federal judges, who are subject to a disciplinary system in which anyone can file a complaint and have it reviewed. An investigation can result in censure and reprimand. Last week, Justice Elena Kagan called publicly for creating a way to enforce the new ethics code, becoming the first justice to do so.
Still, when it comes to the Supreme Court, creating an ethics code enforcement mechanism isn’t as easy as it sounds.
The attorney general has always had the power to enforce violations of the financial and gift disclosure rules but has never apparently used that power against federal judges, said Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert at NYU School of Law.
The body that oversees lower court judges, meanwhile, is headed up by Chief Justice Roberts, “who might be reluctant to use whatever power the conference has against his colleagues,” Mr. Gillers wrote in an email.
The last time Congress ratified an amendment to the Constitution was 32 years ago. The 27th Amendment, ratified in 1992, states that Congress can pass a bill changing the pay for members of the House and the Senate, but such a change can’t take effect until after the next November elections are held for the House.
Mr. Trump has decried court reform as a desperate attempt by Democrats to “Play the Ref.”
“The Democrats are attempting to interfere in the Presidential Election, and destroy our Justice System, by attacking their Political Opponent, ME, and our Honorable Supreme Court. We have to fight for our Fair and Independent Courts, and protect our Country,” Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social site this month.
There have been increasing questions surrounding the ethics of the court after revelations about some of the justices, including that Justice Thomas accepted luxury trips from a GOP megadonor.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was appointed during the Obama administration, has faced scrutiny after it surfaced her staff often prodded public institutions that hosted her to buy copies of her memoir or children’s books.
Justice Alito rejected calls to step aside from Supreme Court cases involving Mr. Trump and Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection defendants despite a flap over provocative flags displayed at his homes that some believe suggested sympathy to people facing charges over storming the U.S. Capitol to keep Mr. Trump in power. Justice Alito says the flags were displayed by his wife.
Democrats say the Biden effort will help put a bright spotlight on recent high court decisions, including the 2022 ruling stripping away women’s constitutional protections for abortion, by the conservative-majority court that includes three justices appointed by Mr. Trump.
The announcement marks a remarkable evolution for Mr. Biden, who as a candidate had been wary of calls to reform the high court. But over the course of his presidency, he has become increasingly vocal about his belief that the court has abandoned mainstream constitutional interpretation.
Last week, he announced during an Oval Office speech that he would pursue Supreme Court reform during his final months in office, calling it “critical to our democracy.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writers Mark Sherman, Lindsay Whitehurst, and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.