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President Joe Biden is reportedly finalizing plans to submit at least two ideas to reform the Supreme Court of the United States.
The “checks and balances” of the U.S. Constitution allow Congress to regulate the federal court system, including the Supreme Court, despite the fact that the courts are a separate branch of government. Congress rarely takes such action, however, and much of the Court’s administration and rules — including its ethics standards — are self-regulatory, allowing members like Justice Clarence Thomas to violate norms regarding the disclosure of lavish financial gifts, for example, without consequence.
Biden’s plans include establishing an enforceable ethics code and tenure limits for justices, per two sources who spoke to The Washington Post. Biden is also considering endorsing a constitutional amendment that would eliminate broad immunity standards for presidents and other officials, in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling that grants protections to presidents against future indictments so long as they cite an action that is under their purview of powers.
Presidents have no role in the constitutional amendment process, but can use their bully pulpit to give support to proposals.
Biden seemed to allude to something in the works, with regard to the Supreme Court, in a Zoom call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Saturday.
“I’m going to need your help on the Supreme Court, because I’m about to come out — I don’t want to prematurely announce it — but I’m about to come out with a major initiative on limiting the Court,” Biden said on that call.
The chances of a deeply-divided Congress passing any proposal to change the Court, whether backed by Biden or not, are slim — such a bill may have a small chance of passage in the Senate, but could be blocked by a filibuster failing a change in parliamentary rules. The odds are even slimmer in the House of Representatives, where Republicans have a majority and are unlikely to agree to limits on a Supreme Court that has handed down a multitude of favorable rulings for them and Trump over the past year.
However, the push for a change to the Court could provide the Biden campaign and Democrats in Congress with a much-needed boost in the run-up to the 2024 elections. A recent Fox News poll indicates that tenure limits, in particular, are strongly supported by U.S. voters.
According to that poll, which was published on Tuesday, 38 percent of Americans approve of the current version of the Supreme Court, with 60 percent expressing disapproval — the highest disapproval rating since Fox News started polling on the subject.
This net-negative rating for the Court is a generally new phenomenon — only after Trump appointed three conservative justices did the Court start seeing net-negative numbers, according to historical Fox News polling data.
Indeed, a plurality of Americans view the Supreme Court as being too conservative, with only 19 percent viewing the Court as too liberal, and just 33 percent saying its ideology is about right.
Nearly four in five voters (78 percent) also said they back measures to impose 18-year term limits on justices— currently, justices serve for an average of about 28 years.
During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to create a commission to examine ways to address problems with the Supreme Court. He fulfilled that promise in April 2021, within the first few months of his presidency. However, after the commission returned a report that indicated “considerable, bipartisan support” for implementing tenure limits, Biden failed to follow up, and the Court continues to operate without tenure limits or mandatory ethics rules.
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