President Joe Biden on Monday called for a total Supreme Court reform and a constitutional amendment to limit the power of his own office, a desire that may not see the light of day but show his priorities in his final term, according to an op-ed Monday in The Washington Post.
“I served as a U.S. senator for 36 years, including as chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. I have overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today,” Biden wrote. “I have great respect for our institutions and separation of powers. What is happening now 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.”
Biden called for a constitutional amendment, saying former presidents lack immunity from federal criminal prosecution, trial, conviction or sentence.
“I share our founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute,” the president wrote. “We are a nation of laws, not of kings or dictators.”
The move is consistent with Biden’s recent statements that “no president is above the law,” which he has repeated several times since the Supreme Court ruled that some of the president’s official actions cannot be prosecuted. The ruling favors former President Donald Trump in criminal cases against him and may allow other former presidents to avoid some criminal charges in the future.
Biden also expressed support for Congress to impose term limits on Supreme Court justices, saying he favors 18-year terms, which he believes would prevent a single president from influencing the judiciary for generations.
He wrote:“Term limits would help ensure that the court’s membership changes with some regularity” and “reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come,”
In addition to term limits, Biden urged Congress to impose on the Supreme Court binding ethical standards similar to those imposed on other federal judges regarding donations, political activity and financial dealings.
“This is common sense,” he wrote. “The court’s current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced.”
Biden is scheduled to speak Monday afternoon at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas.
The president will make his proposal on the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The event was canceled after Trump’s July 13 assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Biden was supposed to present his plan on Monday, July 15, but instead he stayed at the White House during the initial investigation into the shooting.
Source: NBC News
