In a column published in Vox, senior Vox correspondent Ian Millhiser is critical of Biden’s three proposals to reform the Supreme Court: term limits for justices, a binding code of Supreme Court ethics, and a constitutional amendment overturning the Court’s decision allowing sitting presidents to violate the criminal law. (Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, also endorsed the proposals.) Biden’s proposals are “mostly symbolic,” Millhiser writes. “The ethics proposal is meaningful but limited in scope. And the two other proposals? They won’t accomplish anything that couldn’t also be accomplished by a presidential press conference denouncing the Supreme Court.”
In a detailed analysis, Millhiser outlines the problems with each of Biden’s proposed reforms. “If you’re hoping these ideas will rein in a Court that’s essentially become the policymaking arm of the Republican Party, expect to be disappointed,” Millhiser writes. “Amending the Constitution is virtually impossible — it requires approval from three-quarters of the states — so Biden’s proposal to amend the Constitution to overturn the presidential immunity decision in Trump v. United States (2024) is almost certainly dead on arrival. Similarly, the term limits proposal is at odds with Article III of the Constitution, which provides that justices “shall hold their offices during good behaviour,” language that’s historically been understood to protect judges unless they engage in serious misconduct. So that proposal is equally dead.”
Comments