President Joe Biden called for Congress to back his proposals for two significant changes to the U.S. Supreme Court and a change to the U.S. Constitution.
In an op-ed published the morning of July 29, the president outlined his reasoning for pursuing changes that have been long-sought by progressive camps in U.S. politics.
“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 of the United States. No one,” the president wrote.
According to a White House official, President Biden will call for Congress to back term limits for Supreme Court justices and a code of ethics enforceable by the legislative branch.
He also will propose an amendment to limit the extent of presidential immunity afforded by the Constitution, proposing that former presidents be granted no immunity for crimes committed in office.
Citing his 36 years as a U.S. senator and former chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, President Biden said that while he has “great respect for our institutions and separation of powers,” what is happening now in the United States is “not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms.”
“We now stand in a breach,” the president wrote.
Amid an increasingly divisive climate ailing the United States, the Supreme Court has continued with its task to outline final rulings on many politically charged issues for the nation.
With the appointment of President Donald Trump in 2016 and his subsequent conservative-leaning court appointments, the reconfigured Supreme Court released some decisions that sparked criticism from Democrats and progressives, including its overturning of Roe v. Wade and more recently, its 6-3 ruling that presidents and former president are, in principle, immune from prosecution for official acts.
Today, the president made clear his resolve to dedicate time from his last five months in office to back changes that he says can restore trust and accountability in both the Supreme Court and the presidency, a White House official told The Epoch Times.
The announcement comes a week after President Biden said he would be withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race in favor of a run by Vice President Kamala Harris.
In 2020, then-candidate Mr. Biden promised to create a commission to study potential changes to the Supreme Court amid progressive voices calling for expanding the Supreme Court. The commission published a 294-page report to the president in December 2021. President Biden has not acted on that report until now.
The president is scheduled to speak today on his plan from the LBJ Presidential Library commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.
The move marks the first effort by a president to lead changes to the workings of the Supreme Court. It comes after years of progressive advocacy to push their preferred reforms on the judicial branch, to much resistance from the originalist views that are widely preferred within the GOP.
The White House says that term limits for Supreme Court justices would help ensure that the timing of court nominations is more predictable and less arbitrary, reducing the chance that any single presidency be advantaged by the retirement times of justices.
A binding code of conduct for justices, including the disclosure of gifts, refraining from public political activity, and recusal from cases with conflicts of interest would improve public trust in the institution.
Critics of the code of conduct have expressed concern that oversight of justices by Congress would politicize the court.
For President Biden to be successful, his proposals would require 60 votes for passages in the Senate. His proposed constitutional amendment faces additional hurdles, including two-thirds support in both chambers of Congress, or by a convention of two-thirds of the states, and then approval by three-fourths of state legislatures.
Former President Donald Trump previously said of such efforts in the legislative branch: “The Democrats are attempting to interfere in the Presidential Election, and destroy our Justice System, by attacking their Political Opponent, ME, and our Honorable Supreme Court,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We have to fight for our Fair and Independent Courts, and protect our Country.”
The former president also warned that any removal of presidential immunity for official acts of former presidents would risk politicizing prosecutions and undermine the office of the president.
king biden at it again if the law of the land does not suit what the progressive left aka democrat party needs to move there agenda
forward.
well we will have to strike more of the constitution from the law of the land.
we will be venzuella a banana republic
Biden is not making any decisions! It is the puppet masters at work again! When will the remaining “normal” Democrats wake up and see that the D party has been taken over by the Socialist/ Marxists. Equity and progressive is just their words for socialism and Marxism.
ITS NOT JOE making these calls..
AND IF term limits are needed, HE WOULD Have been gone decades ago.
Where are the term limits for over-aged washed out deeply imbeded political blackheads and pimpled politicians like Pelosi or Joe Himself. Just to goes,,or Joe’s to show you how far Joes cognitive ability has been shattered, as he promotes eliminating the very immunity that protects his crime family from paying the price and paying back to the American taxpayer the millions in purloined and laundered illegal money that he gleaned by using the office of VICE President and President that belongs not to him but THE PEOPLE? Well, I guess a stopped clock IS right but only for a moment in time twice a day.
I’ve long said, it will have to be WE THE PEOPLE WHO vote in term limits. BECAUSE the swamp will NEVER VOTE ITSELF limits on their power.
NEVER!
Does Biden not understand the constitution?? Congress has to change the constitution And then states must ratify it To make it official and legal??
Biden wants to take away Trump’s immunity Well that goes both ways Since Harris didn’t do her job Since Harris didn’t do her job as border czar . can she be tried for Dereliction of duty ??
Joe will succed in turning the Supreme Court upside down before leaving office, about the time his promised cure for Cancer appears. I wonder when he comes under the care of Nurse Ratcet in his “One Flew OVer the CUckoo’s Nest” post-Presidental residence asignment if he will think he is actually Napolean or Robespeare? Stalin probably the second runner up.
DEMS NEVER care what the constitution says. THEY HATE IT.
“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 of the United States. No one,” the president wrote.
Is he referring to himself and his corrupt family ?!?
YES.. OR the entire clinton crime cabal.
I see no one has told creepy Joe to go F himself yet, so I will, Joe go F yourself! No one wants your communism!