President Joe Biden outlined "three bold reforms" to rein in an increasingly unaccountable and extreme U.S. Supreme Court Monday.
In an op-ed published in the Washington Post, the president called out the court's ruling on Donald Trump's immunity claims and abortion rights as mistakes that require legislative responses, and he called on Congress to address those issues and impose term limits and a binding code of conduct to restore public faith in the institution.
"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 wrote. "That’s why — in the face of increasing threats to America’s democratic institutions — I am calling for three bold reforms to restore trust and accountability to the court and our democracy."
Biden called for a constitutional amendment, the No One Is Above the Law Amendment, to make clear that former presidents may be tried for crimes committed while in office, saying that a president's power is limited, and not absolute, and he said justices should have limits to how long they may serve.
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"We have had term limits for presidents for nearly 75 years," Biden wrote. "We should have the same for Supreme Court justices. The United States is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court. Term limits would help ensure that the court’s membership changes with some regularity. That would make timing for court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary. It would reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come. I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court."
The president then addressed the ethics cloud that hangs over this court, particularly scandals involving Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito and their acceptance of gifts from billionaires and their wives' political activism.
"I’m calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court," he wrote. "This is common sense. The court’s current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced. 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. Every other federal judge is bound by an enforceable code of conduct, and there is no reason for the Supreme Court to be exempt."
