Following calls from progressives to rein in the Supreme Court, President Joe Biden is embracing sweeping changes to the high court, including term limits and a binding ethics code for the justices.
The call comes as critics have urged Biden to put the brakes on the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, which has taken aim at major climate and environmental provisions.
It follows a controversial term in which the court’s conservative justices struck down the Chevron doctrine, which for 40 years had helped federal regulators defend their rules in court. The court also reached out through its emergency docket to halt EPA controls on smog-forming pollution that wafts across state lines.
And the court was roiled by reports of lavish gifts and luxury trips that were reportedly bestowed upon Justice Clarence Thomas and other members of the court.
Biden is expected to make the case for the changes in remarks today at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, saying it will restore Americans’ faith in the court.
“What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,” Biden said in a Washington Post editorial calling for change. “We now stand in a breach.”
Biden noted that term limits would ensure that a president would appoint a justice every two years and would “reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come.”
Climate and environmental groups welcomed Biden’s proposal, with Evergreen Action Vice President Craig Segall charging that a “fossil-fueled campaign to stack the court with ultra right-wing lawyers has ignited an accelerating legal and environmental crisis that has eroded our bedrock environmental laws and fundamental rights.”
Segall added that despite popular support for climate action and movement by Congress, the court’s majority has “been emboldened to make up entirely new fake legal doctrines to overturn decades of precedent and throw out lifesaving standards.”
Biden is also pushing for a constitutional amendment that would make it clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office. That’s in response to a July 1 Supreme Court ruling that found former President Donald Trump cannot be prosecuted for his official acts as president.
Each proposal would face daunting odds. Enacting 18-year term limits and a binding ethics code would require approval by Congress, and Republicans have opposed similar efforts.
Biden’s proposal for an enforceable conduct and ethics rule would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) this morning called Biden’s proposal a “dangerous gambit” that is “dead on arrival” in the House.
Johnson said on X that the proposal 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.”
Passing a constitutional amendment to bar claims of presidential immunity would be even harder: It requires a two-thirds majority vote in the House and Senate or a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of state Legislatures.
The League of Conservation Voters said it was thrilled with the proposal, arguing that the conservative majority — which includes three justices appointed by Trump — has “repeatedly twisted the law to undermine critical climate, clean air, and clean water safeguards, as well as voting rights and other pillars of our democracy.”
Doug Lindner, the group’s senior director of judiciary and democracy, called the announcement “a major milestone in the fight for a Supreme Court that works for the people, not just Big Polluters, Big Business, and MAGA extremists.”
The Alliance for Justice, which represents about 130 progressive organizations, applauded the move, with interim co-President Keith Thirion accusing the justices of “acting with impunity” by accepting gifts from wealthy benefactors and refusing to recuse themselves from cases in which they have a conflict of interest.
“Meanwhile, they are using their positions to turn back the clock on our rights and freedoms, ignore the threats to our planet, and claim even more power for themselves,” Thirion said.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, backed the move, saying there is “a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court as its fairness has been called into question after numerous ethics scandals and decision after decision overturning long-standing precedent.”
Mike Davis, founder and president of the pro-Trump Article III Project, which backs Republican judicial nominees, blasted Biden and Harris for the proposal, calling the two “beholden to the radical leftwing elements of their party.”
Their “alleged ‘reforms,’” Davis said, “are just one step toward the ultimate goal of packing the Supreme Court to guarantee decisions favorable to Democrats.”
Biden did not endorse increasing the number of justices on the court, a move that is popular among progressive groups who say it would provide balance to the court.
A bipartisan commission Biden established in 2021 to look at court reform did not take a stand on enlarging the court when it issued its report, though it said the move would be possible.
The LCV endorsed efforts to expand the court in 2022, just before a blockbuster Supreme Court ruling in 2022 that curbed EPA’s ability to craft rules for power plant emissions.
The group argued at the time that key environmental protections were at risk in the hands of the conservative majority. The court later that same month restricted EPA’s authority in West Virginia v. EPA.
The court in deciding the case relied heavily on the “major questions” doctrine, which conservatives have cited to block regulatory initiatives, finding that Congress must clearly authorize agencies to regulate important matters.
House and Senate Democrats have pushed to add four justices to the court, arguing that the move would help protect key environmental and climate change measures.
The “Judiciary Act” would create a 13-member bench, reflecting the number of U.S. federal appeals courts.
