Biden, at LBJ Library, Blasts Supreme Court and Proposes Major Changes

The Washington Post / Matt Viser, Tyler Pager, Ann E. Marimow

16:09 JST, July 30, 2024

AUSTIN – President Biden on Monday came to the LBJ Presidential Library to deliver a sweeping indictment of the U.S. Supreme Court, calling its rulings “dangerous,” its ethics code “weak” and its practices in desperate need of reform.

Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who oversaw numerous confirmation battles, said the court has become unmoored from its traditional role. “We live in a different era,” he said during a 25-minute address in an auditorium filled with hundreds of people. “In recent years, extreme opinions the Supreme Court has handed down have undermined long-established civil rights principles and protections.”

He proposed several sweeping changes to the Supreme Court, including 18-year term limits for the justices and a binding, enforceable ethics code.

“On top of its extreme decisions, the court is mired in a crisis of ethics,” Biden said. “These scandals involving the justices have caused public opinion to question the court’s fairness and independence that are essential to faithfully carrying out its mission. The Supreme Court’s current ethics code is weak and, even more frightening, voluntary.”

It was an extraordinary critique of the nation’s top judicial body, especially given Biden’s long-standing faith in American institutions. Conservatives argue that proposals like Biden’s stem from a dislike of the court’s recent rulings, not a genuine desire for reform. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump posted Monday on Truth Social: “We have to fight for our Fair and Independent Courts, and protect our Country.”

Biden also called for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit blanket immunity for presidents, a rebuke of the Supreme Court after it ruled this month that Trump is broadly immune from prosecution for official acts. He called the decision a “dangerous precedent.”

“There are no kings in America,” Biden said. “Each of us is equal before the law. No one is above the law.”

The president’s trip to a venue honoring a president who enacted a sweeping “Great Society” agenda was initially designed to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. When it was scheduled earlier this month, Biden was still a candidate for reelection, trying to prove his vigor and boost his appeal to Black voters.

But the trip was postponed when Biden was diagnosed with covid-19. By the time it was rescheduled, the political landscape had shifted seismically, and Biden showed up having made the same surprising decision Lyndon B. Johnson did in 1968: ending his reelection campaign.

As a result, the national attention has shifted away from Biden and toward Vice President Harris. Biden has kept a light schedule since he announced his withdrawal from the race, and Monday’s event reflected an effort to reinsert himself into the conversation.

Biden spoke like a man thinking about his legacy, not his reelection, with asides to recount highlights of a career that started as a public defender and nods to Johnson and President Abraham Lincoln. “Their work – our work – is not done. It’s not done,” he said. “We do not celebrate these laws as part of our past, but as critical components of our future.”

Following the speech, Biden planned to stop in Houston to pay respects to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), a long-serving Democrat who was a champion of African American and women’s rights. She announced in June that she had pancreatic cancer and died on July 19.

The White House has yet to announce any other public events for Biden this week, which some Democrats saw as a careful effort to yield the spotlight to Harris.

“A major change happened in the past week. And so we do have to recalibrate and figure out what the next six months are going to be,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling on Air Force One.

Biden had long resisted calls to reform the Supreme Court, and the announcement Monday marked a major shift in his posture. After the addition of three justices nominated by Trump, the court has veered sharply to the right – overturning Roe v. Wade, ending affirmative action in college admissions and weakening federal agencies’ power by overturning a 40-year decision. The conservative majority also invalidated Biden’s student-loan forgiveness program.

“I have overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today,” Biden wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post published Monday morning. “I have great respect for our institutions and separation of powers. What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.”

Harris, who appears poised to become the Democratic presidential nominee, was consulted on the changes, the White House said, and she endorsed Biden’s proposals in a statement Monday morning. “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’s proposals, however, face long odds. Term limits and an ethics code would need congressional approval, and the Republican-controlled House is unlikely to support either. Both proposals would require 60 votes to pass the Senate, and Democrats only hold 51 seats in the upper chamber. Passing a constitutional amendment requires clearing even more hurdles.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Friday called the proposals “dead on arrival.”

“That’s what he is,” Biden said in response, amid shouted questions on the airport tarmac. “Dead on arrival.” He later clarified in his speech, saying, “I think his thinking is dead on arrival.”

White House officials said Biden would try to continue making the public case for the plan. “It’s important. It’s timely. And it’s important to the president because it’s important to the American people,” said Stephen Benjamin, a senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement.

Biden’s proposed constitutional amendment, which the president is calling the “No One Is Above the Law Amendment,” states that the “Constitution does not confer any immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction, or sentencing by virtue of previously serving as president.”

The Supreme Court ruled on July 1, in a case brought by Trump, that presidents have “absolute” immunity for clearly official acts, though not for unofficial acts. That decision made it extremely unlikely that Trump would go to trial on charges of trying to subvert the 2020 election before voters cast ballots in this year’s presidential contest.

Biden’s call for an enforceable ethics code follows a year of scandals at the Supreme Court, largely centered on Justice Clarence Thomas and his decision not to disclose gifts of luxury travel from a billionaire benefactor, real estate sales and other financial transactions. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has also come under criticism for what he said was his wife’s display of politically provocative flags outside the couple’s homes.

The justices have long followed federal law requiring them and other officials to file annual financial disclosures of gifts, investments and outside income, although Thomas and others have questioned whether certain gifts and expenditures must be reported.

Last fall, in response to criticism from Democratic lawmakers and outside experts about perceived ethics violations, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. announced that the court had agreed to abide by an ethics code specific to the justices. But the policy did not include any outside oversight of the justices’ individual decisions about whether to recuse from certain cases because of perceived or potential conflicts of interest. Nor did it provide a way to examine alleged misconduct – or to clear or sanction justices who might violate the rules.

The judiciary’s governing body, which is overseen by Roberts, did clarify last year that private jet travel should be reported on disclosure forms, and Thomas since then has reported such travel. He also amended past disclosures to include real estate deals that he had not previously reported.

At a judicial conference last week, Justice Elena Kagan said she would support the creation of a committee of judges to examine potential violations of the Supreme Court’s new ethics code. She called criticism about the inability to enforce the rules “fair,” but she emphasized that she was speaking only for herself and that no enforcement plans are in the works.

“The court is not self-policing,” Biden said in his speech. “The court is not dealing with the obvious conflicts of interest. We need a mandatory code of ethics for the Supreme Court, and we need it now.”

Biden also proposed letting future presidents nominate a justice every two years for 18-year terms. Supporters of terms limits have argued that the change would reduce the stakes, and therefore the ferociousness and partisanship, that have come to engulf Supreme Court confirmation battles.

Still, Biden’s own commission to study potential changes for the court was divided over whether Congress has the power to impose term limits on Supreme Court justices.

As the court has become more conservative in recent years, Democrats have generally embraced proposals to change it while Republicans have opposed them. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, criticized the president’s plan Monday morning.

“The Democrats are attempting to interfere in the Presidential Election, and destroy our Justice System, by attacking their Political Opponent, ME, and our Honorable Supreme Court,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo, who advised Trump on his Supreme Court nominees, said the rulings by conservative justices have been consistent with their views, not driven by gifts from advocates or other potential conflicts of interest. “Let’s stop pretending this is about undue influence. It’s about Democrats destroying a court they don’t agree with,” Leo, a leader of the Federalist Society, said in a statement.

During the 2020 presidential race, Biden rebuffed calls from liberals who advocated expanding the court but he promised he would create a commission to examine proposals for reform. He followed through on that vow after being elected, but before Monday, he had not acted on the changes explored in the commission’s December 2021 report.

Biden’s appearance Monday took place in the district of Rep. Lloyd Doggett (Tex.), the first Democratic congressman to call on the president to drop out of the race after last month’s stumbling debate performance.

Doggett did not fly with Biden on Air Force One on Monday, as did several other leaders including Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.), and the Rev. Al Sharpton. But Doggett was among those who greeted Biden when he got off the plane in Austin; the two exchanged brief words, and Biden smiled.