Biden proposes term limits and ethics code for Supreme Court justices

President Biden unveiled three proposed reforms in response to legal, ethical and political controversies around the Supreme Court. The plan includes an enforceable code of ethics for justices, term limits for the Supreme Court and a constitutional amendment limiting the recent decision on presidential immunity. White House Correspondent Laura Barrón-López breaks down the proposals.
Geoff Bennett:
Meantime, President Biden is unveiling three proposed reforms in response to legal, ethical and political controversies swirling around the U.S. Supreme Court, namely, finding former presidents are largely immune from criminal prosecution, gifts received and initially unreported by justices, and the makeup of the court itself.
President Biden called for the changes at an event in Austin, Texas, this afternoon.
Joe Biden, President of the United States: We can and must be protected and expand our civil rights in America. We can and must prevent abuse of presidential power and restore faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy.
Geoff Bennett:
Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, joins us now to unpack all of this.
Good to see you, Laura.
So what is President Biden proposing and how does this all work?
Laura Barron-Lopez:
So, this was a long time coming for President Biden.
And, today, he endorsed major reforms to the Supreme Court, including term limits for Supreme Court justices, a binding code of conduct for Supreme Court justices, and then a constitutional amendment that would make it so there is no presidential immunity from prosecution for crimes committed while in office.
And for the term limits, it would make it so a president could appoint a justice every two years, and they would spend 18 years on the court, rather than receiving a lifetime appointment.
And then, when it comes to the code of ethics, the justices would have to recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. And, of course, that immunity, the presidential immunity constitutional amendment is in response to the Supreme Court ruling that a president has brought immunity for official acts.
Geoff Bennett:
So the White House says these proposals are popular, but are they politically feasible?
Laura Barron-Lopez:
So all of these would have to be passed through Congress, Geoff.
And most Republicans in Congress have opposed reforms like this. House Speaker Mike Johnson said today that these proposals would be dead on arrival in the House. And to pass — so to pass these, any Democratic president would need to have strong majorities in both chambers.
Specifically, two of these would have to be passed through constitutional amendment, the term limits as well as the presidential immunity amendment. And that would require a two-thirds majority of both chambers and three-quarters of state legislators to ratify constitutional amendments.
Geoff Bennett:
So here’s one question, Laura. Why now? Because, as you well know, President Biden had resisted Supreme Court reform for a long time.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
This is an election year, Geoff. And so this is a big way for President Biden to essentially rally the base to Democrats.
It’s something that progressives have pushed him on since the 2020 campaign. They have wanted to see him endure some Supreme Court reforms. They, of course, really wanted, he faced a lot of pressure, to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court.
And I spoke to Bob Bauer, who sat on the president’s Supreme Court reform commission a few years ago. And he said — Bob Bauer said that court expansion would further erode the public’s confidence in the Supreme Court.
Bob Bauer, Attorney:
I don’t think that there is much of a future to the proposals for court packing or court expansion. I think, on the merits, there are more negatives than positives. We saw support for term limits in a way that we didn’t see for court expansion or court packing from left and right, Democrats and Republicans,quite wide support reflected in the record that we created for the commission.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
As Bob Bauer said there, much more bipartisan support for term limits for justices. And also recently, Justice Kagan said that — acknowledged that she thought that there should be a binding code of ethics for justices.
But the enforcement mechanism is the thing that Justice Kagan said would be difficult, saying that potentially it could be lower court judges that end up enforcing that for the Supreme Court.
Geoff Bennett:
Is this something that Vice President Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, is this something that she will champion?
Laura Barron-Lopez:
It is.
So Vice President Harris quickly endorsed this, Geoff, after the president released the proposal. She said that — quote — “These popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law.”
So she is squarely behind President Biden on this. And, again, her campaign feels that this is a way to energize the base. Democrats now are trying to make the Supreme Court a wedge issue the way Republicans have in the past, and they feel that it’s a good possibility for them to do this, especially after the fall of Roe v. Wade.
Geoff Bennett:
Laura Barron-Lopez, thanks, as always.
Laura Barron-Lopez:
Thank you.
Geoff Bennett:
We appreciate it.