Newsman: President Joe Biden on Monday called for an overhaul of the Supreme Court and a constitutional amendment limiting the power of his own office — reforms that demonstrate his priorities in his final months in office. President Biden calls in favor of 18 years term limits for the supreme court of the United States (SCOTUS).
President Biden also expressed support for Congressto create term limits for Supreme Court justices, saying he favors 18-year terms, which he believes would prevent one president from having multigenerational influence on the judiciary. The Washington Post first reported.
I served as a U.S. senator for 36 years, including as chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. I have overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today,” Biden wrote. “I have great respect for our institutions and separation of powers. What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.”
Biden called for a constitutional amendment saying former presidents don’t have any immunity from federal criminal indictments, trials, convictions or sentencing.
“I share our founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute,” the president wrote. “We are a nation of laws — not of kings or dictators.”
The amendment is in line with Biden’s recent statements that “no president is above the law,” a refrain he has repeated several times since the Supreme Court said some actions related to the duties of a president can’t be prosecuted. The decision favors former President Donald Trump in criminal cases against him and could enable other former presidents to avoid certain criminal charges going forward.
“Term limits would help ensure that the court’s membership changes with some regularity” and “reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come,” he wrote.
In addition to term limits, Biden called on Congress to make the Supreme Court subject to the kind of enforceable ethics requirements imposed on other federal judges regarding gifts, political activities and financial dealings.
“This is common sense,” he wrote. “The court’s current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced.”
In his address from the Oval Office last week explaining why he chose to end his re-election campaign and how he planned to spend his final months in office, Biden said he was “going to call for Supreme Court reform because this is critical to our democracy.
