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President Joe Biden may be preparing to take on the conservative-majority Supreme Court head-on, according to a new report by The Washington Post.
Biden is planning to announce a proposal to establish term limits and an enforceable ethics code on the high court, the outlet reported, citing people briefed on the plan. Specific details of the proposal — or when it might be officially announced — were not immediately available.
The Supreme Court has an existing code of conduct, rolled out last November, which outlines when a sitting Justice should recuse themselves from a case and when outside activities may create the appearance of a conflict of interest. However, unlike the code that binds lower court justices, the Supreme Court's ethics code lacks any enforcement mechanism. It requires sitting Justices to regulate themselves, with critics regarding the measures as toothless against the court's lifetime appointees.
Most changes to the Supreme Court would require congressional approval to enact, so Biden is turning to his allies in the House and Senate for help, the Post reported.
"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," the Post reported Biden said, according to a transcript of a Saturday call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "I've been working with constitutional scholars for the last three months, and I need some help."
Representatives for the Biden administration and Supreme Court did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
The proposals would appear to be an attempt to restrain the Supreme Court's expanding power and balance the polarized conservative court without adding new Justices to the bench.
Biden has rejected calls to expand the Supreme Court for years, despite arguments to do so amid ongoing ethics concerns facing the Court.
Justice Clarence Thomas has been the subject of intense scrutiny following reports that he accepted lavish gifts and vacations from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.
Justice Samuel Alito has also been sharply criticized after it was discovered that a Revolutionary-era "Appeal to Heaven" flag, regarded as a pro-Trump symbol, was flying for weeks over his New Jersey vacation home last summer.
Two Democratic Senators earlier this month called for a special counsel to investigate Thomas over allegations of tax fraud and failure to disclose gifts from Crow he had been given.
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has filed articles of impeachment against both Thomas and Alito on ethical grounds, citing their refusal to recuse themselves from cases they may be connected to, and Thomas' undisclosed gifts. The move followed the Supreme Court's decision granting former President Donald Trump wide-reaching immunity for acts taken during his administration.
