Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court has become increasingly mired in ethical scandals and issued extreme decisions that overturn well-established precedent and run counter to the views and values of the majority of Americans.  A Fox News poll taken July 2024 reveals that 6 in 10 Americans now view the Supreme Court’s job performance with disapproval, and that 71% of voters are “extremely or very concerned” about the Supreme Court.  The poll also revealed that 78% of voters favor an 18-year term limit for Supreme Court justices, and 81% favor a mandatory retirement age.  

Yesterday, President Biden published an Op-Ed in the Washington Post setting forth his plan for Supreme Court reform.  Biden criticized the Supreme Court’s decision that granted presidents broad immunity for crimes they commit in office, writing that “there are virtually no limits on what a president can do” and that “the only limits will be those that are self-imposed.” He called out the Supreme Court’s issuance of “dangerous and extreme decisions that overturn settled legal precedent – including Roe v. Wade,” and he referenced ethical scandals involving several justices that “have caused the public to question the court’s fairness and independence.”

Biden proposed three reforms, centered around the belief that “This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the President of the United States.  Not a Justice on the Supreme Court.  No one.” 

Biden’s first reform seeks a constitutional amendment called The No One is Above the Law Amendment which would clarify that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed in office, consistent with the “Founder’s belief that the president’s power is not limited, not absolute.”  The Fox Poll found that a 56% majority of voters disapproved of the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, including 82% of democrats and 68% of independents.

Biden’s second reform seeks to set term limits for Supreme Court justices.  He points to the fact that the United States is the only major constitutional democracy to give lifetime seats to its high court, and proposes that the president should appoint a new justice every two years to spend 18 years of service on the Supreme Court.

Biden’s third reform seeks to implement a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court.  “Justices should be required 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.”  While every other federal judge is bound by an enforceable ethics code, the Supreme Court currently has a voluntary ethics code that is “weak and self-enforced,” and almost never actually enforced.   As a result, Justices are freee to engage in whatever unethical behavior they desire, without consequences.

Although a majority of Americans support these reforms, it is unlikely they will be implemented in the near future.  GOP House speaker Mike Johnson has declared they would be “dead on arrival” in the Republican-controlled House.  Additionally, two of these reforms require constitutional amendments, which must be ratified by 38 states.  However, it is critical that Biden, who refrained from urging reform for a long time, has now made it into a major political issue headed into the November election, and going forward.  Biden’s call for reform is clearly in tune with the views of the voters in this country, even if it will be obstructed by certain members of the pollical class seeking to preserve the unpopular status quo.

The post Biden Urges Reforms for Increasingly Extreme and Unethical Supreme Court first appeared on The Source.

The post Biden Urges Reforms for Increasingly Extreme and Unethical Supreme Court appeared first on The Source.