Biden proposes term limits for Supreme Court justices
President Joe Biden is proposing sweeping changes to the US Supreme Court, including term limits and a binding code of conduct for its nine justices, but opposition from Republicans in Congress means the proposals have little chance.
Biden called on Congress to pass binding and enforceable rules that would require the 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.
He also urged the adoption of an 18-year term limit for the justices, who currently serve life tenures.
Biden called for the revamp, as well as a constitutional amendment to eliminate broad presidential immunity recognised in a July 1 Supreme Court ruling involving former President Donald Trump, in an opinion piece published in the Washington Post on Monday.
“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,” Biden wrote.
Biden last week ended his re-election bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate to face Trump, the Republican nominee, in the November presidential election.
Biden, who earlier in his presidency convened a commission to study Supreme Court changes, has appointed one of the nine justices, liberal Ketanji Brown Jackson.
House of Representatives Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, called Biden’s proposals an effort to “delegitimise the court” and said the changes would not be considered by the chamber, which his party controls.
“This dangerous gambit of the Biden-Harris administration is dead on arrival in the House,” Johnson said.
The Republican National Committee called the proposals part of a scheme to pack the Supreme Court with “far-left, radical judges”.
Since the court in 2020 reached a 6-3 conservative majority, cemented with Trump’s three appointees, it has moved US law rightward.
In its immunity ruling, the court decided that Trump, in a federal criminal case involving his efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss, cannot be prosecuted for actions that were within his constitutional powers as president.
The court in recent years also has ended its recognition of a constitutional right to abortion, expanded gun rights and rejected race-conscious collegiate admissions, as well as blocking Biden’s agenda on immigration,
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