OPINION:
President Biden’s X account said “No one is above the law” as it unveiled “three bold reforms” of the Supreme Court on Monday. The plan is less about reform and more about Democrats throwing a tantrum because they’re not getting their way.
A White House fact sheet airs the left’s grievances: “In recent years, the Supreme Court has overturned long-established legal precedents protecting fundamental rights. This Court has gutted civil rights protections, taken away a woman’s right to choose, and now granted Presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office.”
There was a time that such a nakedly partisan complaint about the outcome of Supreme Court rulings would be seen as a breach of decorum. Apparently, this doesn’t apply when Democrats are in charge.
To rectify the situation, the administration proposes a legislative package including a constitutional amendment that would do three things. First, it would allow justices to serve on the Supreme Court for a maximum of 18 years.
Proving “no one is above the law” is nothing more than an empty slogan, Mr. Biden represented Delaware in the Senate for 36 years. It’s hard to take objections to the lifetime appointment of federal judges seriously when they come from a man who has spent 51 years in office himself.
On a policy level, there’s nothing inherently wrong with term limits, but the intention here is to get rid of troublesome justices to achieve a transitory political objective. That’s also the goal of the provision, imposing a “binding, enforceable conduct and ethics rules” on the justices.
This has a superficial appeal. It’s important to prevent high-ranking government officials from taking bribes or making important policy decisions to advance their own interests. It would be unseemly if a Supreme Court justice had millions of dollars pouring into a family member’s bank account from favor-seeking foreign businesses — especially if the justice took a 10% cut of the proceeds for himself.
Whoever is entrusted with enforcing the code becomes the ultimate judge. Code enforcers would have the power to threaten justices with removal or punishment unless they rule the “right” way in the next court case. This provision is also a mechanism for getting rid of troublesome judges.
Finally, the measure would state that no president is “immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office,” which proves the exercise is an extension of the current White House’s obsession with former President Donald Trump.
If one were serious about eliminating presidential immunity, then the amendment would also remove legislative immunity and prosecutorial immunity. The United States would become a banana republic in which one political faction alternately imprisons the other.
As House Speaker Mike Johnson has said, this unserious proposal is dead on arrival.
The lesson of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s court-packing scheme, announced in a radio fireside chat in 1937, was that it didn’t matter that the legislative initiative was doomed to fail in Congress. Roosevelt’s ruthless browbeating of the court cowed at least two justices into endorsing the New Deal — securing what he wanted in the short term.
The founders had the right idea in setting up the Supreme Court with lifetime appointments. Preventing the frequent turnover of justices contributes to stability and prevents justices from becoming mere agents of the current president’s political agenda.
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