President Biden will make the case on Monday for radically transforming the Supreme Court.
While the White House announced the major changes Biden's pushing in a fact sheet, the president is expected to deliver remarks about them during a scheduled speech at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas. He also penned an op-ed in The Washington Post detailing his plan.
“In the face of this crisis of confidence in America’s democratic institutions, President Biden is calling for three bold reforms to restore trust and accountability,” the statement read.
First, Biden calls for a constitutional amendment that could limit presidential immunity.
President Biden shares the Founders’ belief that the President’s power is limited—not absolute—and must ultimately reside with the people. He is calling for a constitutional amendment that makes clear no President is above the law or immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office. This No One Is Above the Law Amendment will state that the Constitution does not confer any immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction, or sentencing by virtue of previously serving as President.
Then he calls on Congress to approve term limits for the justices.
Congress approved term limits for the Presidency over 75 years ago, and President Biden believes they should do the same for the Supreme Court. The United States is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court Justices. Term limits would help ensure that the Court’s membership changes with some regularity; make timing for Court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary; and reduce the chance that any single Presidency imposes undue influence for generations to come. President Biden supports a system in which the President would appoint a Justice every two years to spend eighteen years in active service on the Supreme Court.
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And finally, Biden wants a code of ethics for the nine justices.
President Biden believes that Congress should pass binding, enforceable conduct and ethics rules that require Justices 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. Supreme Court Justices should not be exempt from the enforceable code of conduct that applies to every other federal judge.
The White House noted that Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, also supports the changes.
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