AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — President Joe Biden has unveiled long-awaited proposals to reform the U.S. Supreme Court, calling on Congress to impose term limits on the court’s nine justices and an enforceable ethics code and urging lawmakers to ratify a constitutional amendment that would limit presidential immunity.
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The White House outlined Biden’s court proposal on Monday, but with just 99 days until Election Day, it is seen as having little chance of being approved by a closely divided Congress.
Democrats still hope the proposal will help voters weigh their options in a close election. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic front-runner who has sought to frame her race against former Republican President Donald Trump as a “choice between freedom and chaos,” was quick to endorse Biden’s proposal.
Read more: How would Biden’s proposed Supreme Court reforms work?
The White House is seeking to capitalize on growing anger among Democrats over the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, ruling to overturn landmark decisions on abortion rights and federal regulatory power that had been upheld for decades.
Liberals have also expressed concern that revelations of questionable ties and decisions by some of the court’s conservative members are undermining the court’s impartiality.
“I have great respect for our institutions and the separation of powers,” Biden argued in an op-ed published in The Washington Post on Monday. “What is happening now is not normal and undermines public confidence in the Supreme Court’s decisions, including those that affect individual liberties. We are now in a crisis.”
In a statement, Harris said the proposed reforms are necessary because “the Supreme Court is facing a clear crisis of confidence.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called the proposal a “dangerous gambit that will die when it gets to the House of Representatives.”
The president spoke about the proposal on Monday during a speech at the Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, marking the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.
In a brief exchange with reporters shortly after arriving in Texas ahead of the speech, Biden dismissed Johnson’s comments that the proposal was stalled. “I think that’s exactly what Johnson’s saying: It’s dead on arrival,” Biden said, adding that he would “find a way to get it done” by making the proposal.
Biden wants to end lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court. He argues that Congress should pass a law establishing a system in which a sitting president would appoint justices every two years, with them serving on the court for 18 years. Term limits, he argues, would ensure that the court’s membership is regularly replaced, giving the nomination process some predictability.
He also wants Congress to pass a bill establishing a code of judicial ethics that would require judges to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and avoid involvement in cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.
Biden also wants Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s recent landmark immunity ruling that gave former presidents broad immunity from prosecution.
The ruling extends a stay of a Washington criminal case charging Trump with plotting to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat, effectively ending any chance he could be tried before the November election.
An AP-NORC poll conducted in August 2023 found that most Americans supported some kind of age limit for Supreme Court justices. Two-thirds wanted Supreme Court justices to be required to retire at a certain age. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to support a mandatory retirement age, 77% to 61%. When it came to the desire for age limits, Americans of all ages tended to agree, with those over 60 being as likely as other age groups to support an age limit for Supreme Court justices.
The first three justices who could be affected by term limits are on the right: Justice Clarence Thomas has been on the Supreme Court for almost 33 years, Chief Justice John Roberts for 19 years, and Justice Samuel Alito for 18 years.
Supreme Court justices served an average of about 17 years in office from the court’s founding until 1970, said Gabe Roth, executive director of the group Rebuild the Supreme Court. Since then, the average has been about 28 years. Both conservative and liberal politicians support term limits.
Meanwhile, an enforcement mechanism for the Supreme Court’s ethics code could bring 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, potentially resulting in a reprimand or reprimand.Last week, Justice Elena Kagan publicly called for creating a way to enforce the new ethics code, making her the first justice to do so.
Still, when it comes to the Supreme Court, creating an enforcement mechanism for ethics rules is easier said than done.
Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert at New York University School of Law, said the attorney general has always had the power to enforce violations of financial and gift disclosure rules but has never used that power against a federal judge.
Meanwhile, the body that oversees lower court judges is headed by Roberts, “and he may be reluctant to use the conference’s power against his colleagues,” Gillers said in an email.
The last time Congress ratified a constitutional amendment was 32 years ago. The 27th Amendment, ratified in 1992, allows Congress to pass legislation to change the pay of House members and senators, but such changes would not take effect until the next House election in November.
President Trump has denounced the court reforms as a desperate attempt by Democrats to “control the courts.”
“Democrats are trying to interfere in our presidential election and destroy our justice system by attacking their political opponents, the state of Maine and the Supreme Court. We must fight for fair and independent courts and protect our country,” Trump posted on his Truth Social site this month.
Questions about ethics on the Supreme Court have been raised following revelations about some justices, including that Justice Thomas accepted lavish trips from major Republican donors.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama-era appointee, has faced intense scrutiny after it was revealed that her staff frequently encouraged public institutions that hosted her to buy her memoirs and children’s books.
Justice Alito has rejected calls to recuse himself from the Supreme Court’s case involving Trump and defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, but the uproar over a provocative flag flying in his home that some believe suggests sympathy for those accused of storming the U.S. Capitol to keep Trump in power has come after Justice Alito said it was his wife who put up the flag.
Leonard Leo, co-president of the Federalist Society, a conservative and libertarian group, said Biden’s proposed reforms are about “destroying the courts that Democrats don’t agree with.”
“Conservative justices have never ruled in a major case that would surprise anyone, so let’s stop pretending this is about undue influence,” said Leo, who assisted the Trump administration in the selection and confirmation of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
The announcement marks a notable step forward for Biden, who as a candidate was cautious about calling for reform of the Supreme Court, but during his presidency he has become increasingly vocal about what he believes to be the court’s abandonment of mainstream constitutional interpretation.
Madani reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Mark Sherman, Seungmin Kim, Amelia Thomson DeVoe, Lindsay Whitehurst and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.
