President Joe Biden argued that Congress should act to rein in the Supreme Court in a speech Monday that sought to build on frustration from Democrats over the justices’ recent decisions on presidential immunity and abortion to unify his party.
Biden’s remarks at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, during an event marking the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, pointed to a decade of the court’s decisions, along with fears about efforts to swing American law further to the right, to elevate the debate over the Supreme Court’s future.
Biden acknowledged staunch Republican opposition to his call for the three major changes: an enforceable ethics code, 18-year terms for justices and a constitutional amendment to reverse the recent decision granting presidents broad immunity from federal charges.
Before the speech, Biden told reporters that he would “find a way” to move the proposals even though Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had called the proposals “dead on arrival” on Monday.
During the speech, Biden said of Johnson that “his thinking is dead on arrival” and argued that court decisions like the presidential immunity one are creating a crisis for the country.
The push follows a high-profile term where the court granted presidents broad immunity from federal charges and granted courts new sway over federal decision-making.
“I share our founders’ belief that the president must answer to the law. The president is accountable for the exercise of the great power of the presidency. We’re a nation of laws, not kings and dictators,” Biden said during Monday’s speech.
Democrats have already put forward a variety of proposals on those issues, but have faced near-unanimous opposition from Republicans, who control the House of Representatives and enough votes in the closely divided Senate to prevent legislation from advancing.
Johnson, in the statement, said Biden’s proposal “to radically overhaul the U.S. Supreme Court would tilt the balance of power and erode not only the rule of law, but the American people’s faith in our system of justice.”
Before the speech, White House Director of Public Engagement Stephen K. Benjamin told reporters Monday the push for Supreme Court changes would rely on public pressure in the next few months, leveraging heavily perceived public dissatisfaction with the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity.
“We can’t stop, we won’t stop. We’re going to give it the old team try,” Benjamin said of trying to get Congress to advance the changes in the final six months of his term.
For months, congressional Democrats, at times expressing realism about the chances of their proposals passing this Congress, have couched their overhaul bills as an election issue — promising to act on them if voters give them House control this fall.
Biden’s speech appeared to elevate the issue Monday, an echo of the Supreme Court candidate short list former President Donald Trump used in the 2016 campaign to woo conservative voters.
Several times Biden also mentioned Project 2025, a presidential transition plan put forward by the conservative Heritage Foundation, that he said could undermine civil rights in a Trump administration.
“They’re serious, folks,” Biden said.
Before the speech, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign sought to leverage the issue, saying there was a “clear crisis of confidence” in the court.
“These popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the Court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law,” Harris’ statement said.
The Trump campaign responded by calling Biden’s speech “music to Commie Kamala’s ears” and spotlighting Harris’ past support for expansion of the Supreme Court.
Overhaul proposals
Biden previewed his overhaul proposals in his address to the nation where he explained his decision to drop his presidential reelection bid and back Harris for president last week.
Congressional Democrats have called for changes to the Supreme Court for years, but the movement gained new prominence within the party following the justices’ 2022 decision that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. They’ve also pointed to numerous polls showing the general populace’s growing dissatisfaction with the court.
A Fox News poll released this month showed the court had a record high 56 percent disapproval rating. The same poll showed more than 75 percent of respondents supported a retirement age or term limits for Supreme Court justices, up about 10 percent from July 2022.
Senate Democrats advanced one measure on the justices’ ethics out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last year. The bill, backed by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., would require the court to adopt a new code of conduct, reporting rules for gifts, recusal standards and transparency provisions for amicus brief filers. The bill would also establish a panel of lower-court judges to review complaints seeking a justice’s recusal from a case.
The bill has not received any Republican support and an effort to pass the bill by unanimous consent earlier this year failed when Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., objected. Whitehouse said he had been in contact with the Biden administration about the overhaul effort.
Republicans have labeled the Democratic effort to change the Supreme Court a political attack on a conservative-controlled court. In a statement Monday, Graham said Democrats have sought to undermine an institution they disagree with.
“They will reshape any institution to make sure it performs for them, not the country as a whole,” Graham said. “The Biden-Harris Administration’s so-called Supreme Court ‘reform’ effort is a violation of the separation of powers and is designed to undercut the highest Court in the land.”
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