Biden calls for sweeping US Supreme Court reforms

WASHINGTON — US President Joe Biden unveiled plans on Monday to reform the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, in a bold but long-shot move as he seeks to make a mark in his last six months in power.

In proposals backed by Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic election nominee, Biden is calling for 18-year term limits for the top court's justices and an enforceable ethics code.

The 81-year-old also wants a constitutional amendment to reverse the court's recent ruling backing Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump's claims of presidential immunity.

Biden's move comes after a series of shock Supreme Court rulings such as the repeal of the nationwide right to abortion, and following a host of scandals involving the top court's lifetime-appointed justices.

The plans have almost no hope of getting through a deeply divided US Congress but could motivate Democratic voters in the November 2024 election, from which Biden dropped out just over a week ago.

“What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,” Biden said in an opinion piece in The Washington Post.

“We now stand in a breach.”

Biden said the proposals also reflected the principle that “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”.

Harris said in a separate statement that “President Biden and I are calling on Congress to pass important reforms” to the court.

“These popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the Court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law,” she said.

Biden is set to further detail the plans later Monday in a speech in Austin, Texas. He had confirmed he would seek the reforms during an Oval Office address last week outlining his priorities after deciding to drop out of the 2024 election.

‘Close to zero’ 

Legal expert Steven Schwinn warned that Biden had a “close to zero” chance of getting the plan through.

But Biden was probably trying to “raise public consciousness” and “introduce the Supreme Court as an election issue,” Schwinn, a law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, told AFP.

The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority of justices who currently serve for life, plays an outsize role in determining the lives of ordinary Americans from everything from reproductive health to the environment.

It is packed with three judges appointed while Trump was president from 2017 to 2021 and Democrats have warned that with a second term he would be able to name even more.

Biden had previously resisted calls to overhaul the court but has changed his mind after it dealt several blows to his policies in recent years.

The court stunned the world in 2022 when it overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that had underpinned the federal right to abortion. At least 20 states have now brought in full or partial abortion bans.

It has rolled back the power of federal agencies, blocked Biden’s signature student debt forgiveness plan, and partially ruled in early July in favour of Trump’s immunity claims.

Trump is now using that ruling to challenge his recent criminal conviction in a porn star-hush money case and a series of other prosecutions.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has been rocked by ethics scandals involving arch-conservative justices.

Justice Clarence Thomas recently admitted that two luxury vacations he took in 2019 were paid for by a billionaire Republican political donor.

Thomas, the longest-service justice on the court, has also ignored calls to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election, after his wife took part in the drive to keep Trump in power despite his electoral loss.

And Justice Samuel Alito has rejected calls to recuse himself from some Trump-related cases after flags linked to the former president’s false election fraud claims were discovered to have been flown outside his home and vacation property.