- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
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.
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Anyone know where 18 years came from? 3 appointments per Senate term? 9 Congressional terms for 9 justices? 4.5 presidential terms?
One would think you’d want it to be an even number of presidential terms, so every president gets one appointment per term or whatever. Otherwise you open yourself up to Garland-esque shenanigans by the Senate.
Historically, the average SC Justice has served about 16 years. 18 seems like a good length to eliminate the extreme cases without affecting the majority.
Because there are 9 justices, so there would be a new appointment every 2 years, giving every presidential term two appointments. So it will exactly avoid all that shit this way.
9 judges, one changed out every 2 years. Not one administration gets more than 4 nominations.
Call for the moon to not be full on monday, too, that also would be nice and never happen.
I find it extremely ironic that a life long politician is calling for term limits. If perhaps it were term limits for both Congress and the Supreme Court I may support it. I hope this has no chance of moving forward.
I get the idealism, I really do, but if we waited for the absolute perfect version of everything, we would never get anything done. Besides, with a term limited scotus, you have a lot better position to argue for term limited politicians.
if he really wants to hit republicans in every race, then run on the fact that republicans are talking out of both sides of their mouths when they claim presidents above 80 are too old to run but they seem ok with supreme court justices to essentially live their entire lives on the court.
Huh I’ve been saying this for years. Even commented it a while back on lemmy. hope they can get it through but don’t have super high hopes unless the next couple of election cycles lean heavily towards the Democrats.
It has nothing to do with election cycles, it must be bipartisan because it’s a constitutional amendment that requires ratification. You need one election cycle to pass it in the house and Senate than a long political slog to get it ratified.
Well it has something to do with election cycles cause Republicans will block this every way they can. So the only way for it to even have a shot is for Democrats to take both the House and Senate with a 2/3 majority to be able to make a constitutional amendments. I sincerely doubt that would happen. After that it would take a very long political slog to ratification. Which again, I don’t have high hopes for it to get through the States.
Election cycles are how people get elected, so it has a lot to do with election cycle leaning very heavily towards the Democrats for it to not be DOA. Then it has a long uphill battle to get it ratified by the states. To say that it has a slim chance of going anywhere is really overstating the chances of it happening.
That hasn’t happened since 1977 so don’t get your hopes up.
Why wouldn’t this have bipartisan support other than the sobbingly obvious ways that it prevents consolidation of power?
18 years is a bit steep but glad it’s even being pushed in the first place
Do it Pussy
Alito and Thomas Palpatine entered the chat, with money falling out of their Sith robes:
“We ARE the Supreme Court.”
That’s not how government works. Biden has the power to start a discussion, but it’s up to Congress to actually do it.
That number is way too high, it should be 8 years, the maximum amount even a president is allowed to serve.
Exactly what I was going to say. Curse you and your family for saying it ahead of me. Also up vote.
I thought the intent was to keep the number at 9 while still having elections every 2 years. Doesn’t that come out to 18?
Interesting how Biden and the Dems are calling for this when the Supreme Court is majority Conservatives… I wonder if he’d feel the same if the SC was majority Liberal…
If that case ever came to pass and a conservative majority did nothing, they would be as ethicaly compromised as the court is now and should be voted out of office. (Nice Whataboutism there eh… Pick a better argument)
It’s not that they’re conservative, it’s that they’re making dumb fucking decisions.
If the court were majority liberal we wouldn’t be desperate for reform because the justices who were appointed by democrats aren’t corrupt.
Clearly not, because if it were a liberal majority, it wouldn’t have declared Presidents above the law, or tried to outlaw abortion.
Term limits should be 6 years or less. 18 is just too much to allow for
I think it makes sense if you want stability where there’s always 4 senior judges with 10+ years experience.
And even better if we combine this with strict ethics rules where we can be sure any new Tomas etc. gets the boot.
For SCOTUS I think the idea is to have an opening every 2 years. I can see the argument in favor of replacing them at about that rate. But maybe 1 per year is better. Regardless, I’d like to see the SCOTUS openings be more predictable and frequent.
18 years is perfect. It’s the shortest term in which a single Predisent can’t replace a majority of the justices.
Yeah that occurred to me after I posted my comment. Seems perfect to me, too.
9 years means a 2 term president gets 8 people on the court. That’s a terrifying prospect.
Yep agreed
18 years requires that the entire Court takes 3-6 administrations to swap out, and is the shortest term in which a single President can’t replace a majority of the justices.
With 6-year SCOTUS terms a 2-term President can select 100% of the justices on the Court, and would have a majority in their first term. It would completely remove the check against the Executive.
Yeah, at the proposed rate the court would be comprised of:
- 1 justice appointed by Bush Jr
- 4 justices appointed by Obama
- 2 justices appointed by Trump
- 2 justices appointed by Biden
So you’d have a 6-3 liberal leaning court. Which makes sense since Democrats have held the presidency for 12 of the last 18 years.
That’s assuming it isn’t gamed. If your time is running out and your party is losing power soon, you can step down and let the president of your choice appoint a new justice.
If a Senator, Congresspe son, or President leaves office early, the person appointed or elected to fill the vacancy finishes out the term. The Supreme Court would be similar.
Maybe have a rule similar to the President that if a Justice serves less than X years of a predecessor’s term they can be reappoonted, so that if someone dies or steps down a year before their term is up it doesn’t screw the person who fills the vacancy.
I imagine they’d have to flush out all the exact scenarios, the biggest problem being the existing justices. I’d imagine you’d have to do something like this, assuming the bill took place immediately.
- Thomas - Joined the court in 1991, almost 33 years ago - Out immediately, serving 15 years longer than normal, Biden chooses replacement.
- Roberts - Joined the court in 2005, almost 19 years ago - Out in 2026, serving 21 years, 3 longer than normal, Harris chooses replacement.
- Alito - Joined the court in 2006, almost 18 years ago - Out in 2028, serving 22 years, 4 longer than normal, Harris chooses replacement.
- Sotomayor - Joined the court in 2009, almost 15 years ago - Out in 2030, serving 21 years, 3 longer than normal, Harris chooses replacement.
- Kagan - Joined the court in 2010, almost 14 years ago - Out in 2032, serving 22 years, 4 longer than normal, Harris chooses replacement.
- Gorsuch - Joined the court in 2017, over 7 years ago - Out in 2034, serving 17 years, 1 year shorter than normal, next president chooses replacement.
- Kavanaugh - Joined the court in 2018, almost 6 years ago - Out in 2036, serving 18 years, which is the new normal, next president chooses replacement.
- Barrett - Joined the court in 2020, almost 4 years ago - Out in 2038, serving 18 years, which is the normal, next president chooses replacement.
- Jackson - Joined the court in 2022, over 2 years ago - Out in 2040, serving 18 years, which is the new normal, next president chooses replacement.
Honestly, looking at it written out it seems really good. Obviously the older court members are the ones that will have stuck around longer than the 18 years. Under the schedule, Gorsuch is the only one who doesn’t get the full 18 years, which is fitting since he is the only pick for the court that is truly illegitimate.
I think if there was a death or someone had to step down, you’d want the current president to appoint someone to fill the remainder of their term, rather than starting the clock all over again at 18 years. That would prevent retiring early to game the system.
Yeah - you’d basically set up an 18-year cycle of appointments every 2 years with each seat up once per cycle.
I’d be okay with locking-in the number of seats on the Court at that point as well. Adding or removing seats would really screw with the system, and 9 seats with 18 year terms really does work out brilliantly mathematically.
Only once since the Civil War has a President been elected to replace a President of the same party (Reagan - > HW Bush), so keeping a 2-term President from being able to appoint a majority would probably result in a fairly balanced Court.
Also limiting them to 1 term offers the same political immunity a lifetime appointment does.
The more I think about it the more I like it.
I agree, but I also think 18 seems a little long. I think 14 would probably be a good number, or maybe 16. I think having it off the 4-year cycle is a solid idea. I assume 18 was chosen because that’s two two-term presidents plus an extra 2 years to space it out to make it harder to game. I can see some of the reasons 18 was picked and I get it, but also 18 is the amount of time it takes to get the right to vote, which seems long for an unelected position to be held without the ability to give feedback.
Do you want an individual President to be able to select more than 50% of the Court?
If the answer is “no” then 18 years is going to need to be the minimum.
A 2-term President would get to nominate 4 justices with an 18-year term.
With 16-year terms, a 2-term President has a 50/50 shot of getting to nominate 5, depending on where in the SCOTUS cycle the President is elected.
16 is also problematic due to the number of seats on the Court. It’s best to have it be 1, 3, 9, or 18 to keep the cycle regular, and everything but 18 is way too short.
18 really does work out very well.
Hmm. Why not set also set a retirement age? Are there any rules for what happens if a judge gets early onset Alzheimer’s or something?
Why did he not push for this before the final months of his presidency? Why wait until the 11th hour?
I think you already know the answer, but are afraid to admit it to yourself.
If these reforms actually get implemented, Biden’s legacy will be enshrined as one of the most positively influential presidents ever.
If only he didn’t have the blemish of the Israel situation on his record, which (to be fair) he’s inherited-but has not handled well at all. I’m sure it’s way more complicated than what we know, but no matter what, it’s a bad thing to have attached to his legacy.
Biden did not “inherit” the Israel situation. He made it a core part of his political career to be a staunch supporter of Zionism, ethnic cleansing and genocide against Palestinians.
This is Biden in 1986 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYLNCcLfIkM
“Where there not an Israel, the US would have to invent an Israel”
Biden has always been driven by a desire to cause destabilization and war in the Middle East, killing millions of people through various US policies and invasions during his long political career.
I think the term is used here to indicate that Israel is a core part of America’s foreign policy, and regardless of who the president is, they have to deal with that legacy.
If Biden just stumbled into politics 15 years ago, maybe one could say that. But he made staunch support for Israel integral to his political career for over 40 years. And he also didn’t hold back on the “why”. It is to serve US interests which for the Middle East have been destabilization and brutal violence.
Biden was critical in making it that core part. Not just during his presidency.
US has sent Israel thousands of 2,000-pound bombs since Oct. 7
Not really complicated. That’s why Irish MEP Clare Daly called him “Butcher Biden” and said he dishonors the legacy of his ancestors. It seems many Irish-Americans agree.
Up to 180,000 Palestinian deaths isn’t complicated. Btw, it’s a Tuesday in America.🇺🇸
18?! Try 8.
You won’t even get 50
He had 4 years, two of which we had the numbers…
It’s just a lot of Dems didn’t want to get rid of the fillibuster.
Having a D by your name isn’t enough, we need to elect Dems to those seats who are actually willing to fight.
Term limits on SCJ would take a constitutional amendment, so no we haven’t had the numbers.
We didn’t have the numbers. The Senate was 50 Republicans, 48 Democrats, 2 Independents. 2 of the Democrats (Manchin and Sinema) flipped to I.
So 50-46-4. And Manchin and Sinema refused to touch the filibuster.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Not saying there wouldn’t be more, but at least two Democrats are Republicans who ran under D and sabotaged several democratic agendas.
It would have been great to have the Democrats tow the party line and pass more meaningful legislation, but corrupt politicians gotta corrupt.
but at least two Democrats are Republicans who ran under D and sabotaged several democratic agendas.
So did Joe and the DNC fall for it?
Or were they lying when they said 50 was enough for the party platform?
Hell, four years ago Joe was saying he could get Republican senators to vote for the Dem platform
It would have been great to have the Democrats tow the party line and pass more meaningful legislation, but corrupt politicians gotta corrupt.
Dont tell me. Go tell the DNC who defends them, but hangs progressives out to dry and even supports their challengers.
