President also says presidential immunity for crimes should be removed and ethics rules for justices should be stricter
Joe Biden has called for a series of reforms to the US Supreme Court, including the introduction of term limits for justices and a constitutional amendment to remove immunity for crimes committed by a president while in office.
In an op-ed published on Monday morning, the president said justices should be limited to a maximum of 18 years’ service on the court rather than the current lifetime appointment, and also said ethics rules should be strengthened to regulate justices’ behavior.
The call for reform comes after the supreme court ruled in early July that former presidents have some degree of immunity from prosecution, a decision that served as a major victory for Donald Trump amid his legal travails.
“This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States,” Biden wrote.
He’d have to be a stronger leader to pull that off. But you’re right, it starts at the bottom. Elect progressives to local positions, and that becomes the foundation of the party. It’s precisely what conservatives have I been doing for 50 years.
Even a strong leader can’t executive order a constitutional amendment.
If Biden were a strong leader, he could challenge his party and his followers to do the hard things. He could make a persuasive argument, rally the masses, and convince people that it is in their best interest to do what he wants to do. A strong leader would do the right thing, even if they might lose.
It’s much easier to motivate your followers if they are all narcissistic bigots, of course.
It takes 2/3rd’s of Congress to pass an amendment so no he can’t make his party do it. He’d have to convince about 1/3rd of the GQP to do it too. Remember this is the party that stole 2 seats and just finished successfully weaponizing the courts to push their policy agenda as the out party. You think a single one of them wants to term limit boofer or the handmaid?
Or he can somehow as president spend all his political capital not doing president things and instead push it at the ballot level state by state, which if he was lucky would’ve taken likely his entire term. He also inherited the Covid economy with the Delta variant ripping through the country the moment he took office so “SCOTUS term limits” wasn’t exactly being prioritized over, quite literally, millions dying.
I am very critical of Biden but sometimes y’all have the most ridiculous suggestions for what he should’ve spent his time doing that shows very little grasp of what the executive branch actually can and can’t do, both technically or practically speaking.
I don’t expect him to win every fight. I’m really fucking tired of hearing about how we can’t be fighting battles because we’ll lose. The point is to engage in the debate. You’re not going to convince your enemy, but you can drain their public support and bolster your own. So many progressive oolicies have languished in the Democrat doldrums of “We don’t have a super-majority so we’re not even going to try” for decades.
Yet people get mad at him for constantly trying to fight to relieve student loan debt “because clearly it won’t pass.” You can’t make everyone happy. I personally prefer fights that can at least move the ball. A clearly doomed attempt at an amendment would only set things back.
It took ~15 years for the democrats to get a crack at healthcare again because of the damage the right wrought attacking Hillary Clinton’s efforts in the 90’s. And even with overwhelming dominance of the government they barely passed a very diluted bill that basically cost Obama the rest of his term and his second one. You have to think strategically sometimes. Burning political capital on a clearly doomed effort is not smart.
There was no path to victory for an amendment limiting justices’s terms in 2020. Especially not with COVID going on.
I’m not mad at him for that. I’m mad at him for not pushing on climate change, or income inequality, or corporate real estate monopolies, or any number of other issues on which Biden and the Democrats have been slow walking half measure platitudes.
Then why did we waste time discussing SCOTUS for several lengthy comments as if you cared about it? It was the context of the post and this thread.
Later dude
Because that’s not the entire list of available options. It’s not like the resolute desk has a box with two buttons, one labeled “Constitutional amendment to overhaul the SCOTUS,” and the other is “sit on your own thumb and spin for three years.” There have been many opportunities for Biden to step up and lead, and he hasn’t, because he ain’t that guy. He’s not a leader. He was in the good chair at the right time, so the DNC decided he was the guy they wanted to take on Trump. I’m happy Trump lost to Biden, and I desperately want Harris to win. But neither of them are progressive enough to save the world or America from the looming catastrophes.