President Joe Biden proposed three significant reforms to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, emphasizing his respect for American institutions but expressing concern over recent events. Biden is specifically motivated by the court’s decision granting broad immunity to former presidents for crimes committed while in office and ongoing ethics issues involving some justices. Read more.
Firstly, Biden suggests a constitutional amendment to clearly state that former presidents do not have immunity for crimes committed while in office. He finds the principle of immunity, highlighted in the recent Trump v. United States case, alarming as it implies “there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.” Given the challenging nature of passing constitutional amendments—requiring a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress followed by ratification from three-quarters of the states—this proposal faces significant hurdles.
The second proposal entails implementing term limits for Supreme Court justices, advocating for a system where each president appoints a new justice every two years, with each justice serving an 18-year term. This measure, Biden argues, would prevent single presidencies from having disproportionate and long-lasting impacts on the court’s composition. However, the feasibility of such term limits, whether they could be established via statute or require another constitutional amendment, remains unclear.
Biden’s third proposal calls for a binding code of conduct for Supreme Court justices. Unlike lower federal court judges, Supreme Court justices are not bound by any formal code of ethics. Citing recent failures to disclose financial details and other ethical lapses, Biden criticized the court’s self-devised ethics code as “weak and self-enforced.” He suggests mandatory disclosures of gifts, restricted public political activities, and mandatory recusals in cases with potential conflicts of interest related to the justices or their spouses.
This proposal comes shortly after Justice Elena Kagan expressed support for an enforceable ethics mechanism during a conference held by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Biden’s op-ed detailing these proposed reforms was published in The Washington Post, coinciding with a report from the Annenberg Public Policy Center highlighting a “withering of public confidence in the courts.”
Biden’s latest proposals build upon his earlier commitment, made during the 2020 presidential campaign, to form a bipartisan commission to study potential Supreme Court reforms. This commission released its report in December 2021, providing a foundation for Biden’s current reform initiatives.