President Joe Biden is expected to endorse drastic changes to the U.S. Supreme Court that could result in legislation on term limits for the justices and enforceable ethics codes, according to The Washington Post.
Sources familiar with the matter told the Post about the upcoming endorsement, which could additionally include a call for a constitutional amendment to eliminate broad immunity for presidents and other officeholders.
“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,” Biden reportedly said in a call with Congressional Progressive Congress members, which was obtained by The Washington Post. “I’ve been working with constitutional scholars for the last three months, and I need some help.”
The changes come on the heels of multiple rulings made by the U.S. Supreme Court which have not benefited the Biden administration.
In late June, the justices sided in a 6-3 vote within Fischer v. United States, which held their position that the Department of Justice (DOJ) abused the law by interpreting it too broadly in order to go after former President Donald Trump and his supporters over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The implications from the decision had effects on special prosecutor Jack Smith’s election interference case against Trump as two of the charges claimed the former president “knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified.”
Following the ruling, the justices brought forward another vote in early July on Trump’s presidential immunity appeal, finding presidents while in office have immunity from criminal prosecutions when it comes to “official acts.”
The decision subsequently left Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with little to hold up their indictments against Trump, as both are still continuing with their cases.
However, on Monday Smith was hit with another blow as Florida Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed his classified documents case against Trump as she agreed Smith’s appointment to special counsel by Biden’s general attorney was unlawful.
Biden reportedly spoke with Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe about the immunity ruling, according to the Washington Post. Tribe noted Monday that the dismissal of Smith’s case creates an opportunity for Cannon to be pulled off the case.
Justices additionally delivered a landmark decision in striking down the precedent of automatically deferring to bureaucrats by overturning Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council that was requiring courts to defer to reasonable agency interpretations of a given law if the language used was ambiguous in nature. Since the decision lower courts will now have to reconsider cases where federal agencies interfered with Americans’ activities.
The president has been hounded by Democratic lawmakers and liberal activists on addressing changes to the court as the rulings have come forward. Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna stated that Biden should “run on term limits in 2024” in order to “wake up the court” over their decisions, according to the WSJ.
Biden has insisted that he would not be in favor of changes such as packing the court, stating in an interview with MSNBC that if they began the process of attempting to expand, it would “politicize it, maybe forever, in a way that is not healthy.”
