Legal experts are crying foul on possible plans that President Biden could support to make drastic changes to the Supreme Court.
Before he abruptly dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the ticket, news reports indicated that Biden was considering supporting legislation that would attempt to impose term limits on Supreme Court justices and a new enforceable ethics code.
Such legislation would be a radical shift for Biden, who has historically resisted calls to expand the high court or push for any substantive changes.
But since the Trump administration, which gave Republican appointees the majority, Biden could be shifting his views to accommodate the more extreme members of his party just months away from the presidential election. Legal experts warn, however, such congressional action “undermines democracy.”
Justices posing for an official photo at the Supreme Court. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)
“The question of whether President Biden and his left wing could impose term limits or age limits on Supreme Court justices by statute alone and not a constitutional amendment is, at best, highly debatable and dependent on the devilish details that have not yet been released,” John Shu, a constitutional attorney and former official in both Bush White Houses, told Fox News Digital.
“Attempting to do so definitely undermines democracy and separation of powers, as well as the Constitution’s very structure. It also tries to delegitimize the court as an institution. A constitutional amendment would be the cleanest way to impose term or age limits on Supreme Court justices, but it’s a terrible idea for many reasons,” he said.
Shu noted that, in the past, Biden was “publicly and strongly against court-packing and placing term limits on federal judges, both of which he called ‘boneheaded.’
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Crowds outside the Supreme Court reacting to the Dobbs ruling. (Fox News Photo/Joshua Comins)
“It is colossally stupid and dangerous to wreck the Constitution and an entire branch of government just because certain people don’t like some of the current court’s rulings,” he added.
Mike Davis, former chief of nominations in the Senate and president of the Article III project, said the reported proposals Biden is considering endorsing are “a radical assault on judicial independence, and a grave threat to democracy, which Biden pretends he’s protecting.”
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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during an NCAA championship teams celebration on the South Lawn of the White House on July 22, 2024. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
It’s unclear if Biden will still pursue such an attempt to alter the court’s structure, with the legalities of such a move in question – and further, if he was considering the legislation for political reasons as the pressure was mounting for him to drop out of the race.
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Carrie Severino, president of JCN, a conservative advocacy organization and author of “Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Court,” said she expects Harris and other Democratic hopefuls “to pledge fidelity to politicizing the court because they’ll be after the same dark money groups that Biden courted.”
“She will likely end up parroting the most extreme policy ideas out there.”