Fresh off his unsurprising yet nevertheless momentous decision to bow out of the 2024 race, President Joe Biden announced his grand plans for the remainder of his (one and only) presidential term. Among those: proposed Supreme Court reforms.
The proposed reforms include Supreme Court term limits and a formal code of conduct, in addition to a constitutional amendment prohibiting criminal immunity for former presidents.
Joe Biden to Unveil His Supreme Court Plans—and They’re Non-Starters
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As streiff rightly noted in his OpEd linked above, here’s what’s driving Biden’s push for these proposed reforms:
It is in direct response to two related factors. The 6-3 conservative majority does not seem to be going anywhere. If Trump wins, that majority will probably be cemented for at least another generation. The Supreme Court has proven to be the bulwark defending our civil liberties from the fascistic tendencies of Biden and his supporters. The second factor is that the Supreme Court has made rulings curtailing the ability of federal agencies to rule by fiat (Loper Bright) and has attacked one of the sacraments of the Democrats’ secular religion by ruling that abortion is not a constitutional right (Dobbs). Along the way, it limited the ability of Democrats to use the legal system to harass and imprison opposing politicians by recognizing that a president has some degree of immunity for official acts.
On Sunday, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch sat down with Fox News Sunday’s Shannon Bream to discuss his new book, “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law.” During their conversation, Bream also asked Gorsuch to share his thoughts regarding the recent reforms proposed, and Gorsuch, wise owl that he is, responded by side-stepping the political ramifications while simultaneously driving home the import of pushing for significant changes. Watch:
From their exchange:
BREAM: You are not in a bubble here at the court. There are real-world events happening. The president has proposed now changes to the court, supported, it appears, by [a] vice president who looks like she’s going to be the Democratic nominee. How does the court feel about potential changes — term limits, ethics codes that are enforced by someone in ways that it isn’t now?
GORSUCH: Shannon, you’re not going to be surprised that I’m not going to get into what is now a political issue during a presidential election year. I don’t think that would be helpful.
I have one thought to add: It is that the independent judiciary means — what does it mean to you as an American? It means that when you’re unpopular, you can get a fair hearing under the law and under the Constitution. If you’re in the majority, you don’t need judges and juries to hear you and protect your rights — you’re popular.
It’s there for the moments when the spotlight’s on you, when the government’s coming after you. And don’t you want a ferociously independent judge and a jury of your peers to make those decisions? Isn’t that your right as an American? And so, I just say, “Be careful.”
Gorsuch is exactly right. The independence of the judiciary is critical to preserving the American system of governance, and chipping (or hacking) away at that independence — as the proposed reforms would inevitably do — is shortsighted and ill-advised. The saving grace in all this is that Biden doesn’t have the wherewithal — logistically or politically — to ram such changes through, though the Democrats will undoubtedly bang the drum on it from now ’til the election. Just one more arrow in their quiver of threats to democracy aimed, ostensibly, at “preserving democracy.”
