US President Joe Biden has unveiled proposals to reform the Supreme Court, calling on Congress to impose term limits on justices and impose new ethics rules.
Biden outlined his plans for the conservative-led Supreme Court in an opinion piece on Monday, saying they are needed to “restore trust and accountability to the court and our democracy”.
The reforms, which would need to be passed by Congress, include setting Supreme Court justices’ terms at 18 years and establishing a stricter ethics code for them, similar to that governing federal judges.
Biden is also urging for a constitutional amendment that would undermine the Supreme Court’s recent ruling backing Donald Trump’s claims to presidential immunity.
“This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law,” wrote Biden in The Washington Post. “Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one,” said Biden, who previously had been wary of calls to reform the court.
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He added: “We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power. We can and must restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy.”
The proposals are an unlikely bid by the 81-year-old president, who will not run for re-election, to leave his mark on the US’s judicial system in his last days in office.
With both chambers of Congress deeply divided, and Biden’s rival Republican Party narrowly controlling the House of Representatives, his chances of getting the reforms through are next to none, analysts say.
Nevertheless, the reform push could help put the Supreme Court on voters’ minds as they head to the ballot box in November, said Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren.
“That is a good reason to vote for Kamala Harris and to vote for Democrats in both the Senate and the House,” Warren told CNN earlier this week after Biden initially spoke about the plans.
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