Biden to Call for Changes to Supreme Court During Austin Visit
"In his first public engagement since ending his campaign, President Biden will propose overhauling a court that has become increasingly politicized and subject to ethics complaints.
By Katie Rogers
Katie Rogers covers the White House and reported from Austin, Texas.
President Biden is expected to deliver remarks on Monday pushing for legislation that would bring major changes to the Supreme Court, including imposing term limits and creating an enforceable code of ethics on the justices.
The president is scheduled to speak at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, his first public engagement since announcing his decision to end his presidential campaign last week. His speech will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and propose overhauling the court, an effort that requires congressional approval and has little hope of gaining traction in a Republican-controlled House and a divided Senate.
The White House said in a fact sheet that Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, also supported the changes Mr. Biden would outline in his remarks.
Mr. Biden is expected to argue that the current system of lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices gives a president undue influence for decades. He will propose a process in which a president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years on the bench.
Mr. Biden supports a code of conduct that would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest, according to the plan the White House laid out.
He will also call for a constitutional amendment that could limit the broad presidential immunity that the court’s 6-to-3 conservative majority backed at the end of its term last month. That amendment would state that the Constitution does not confer any immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction or sentencing by virtue of previously serving as president, the White House said.
Mr. Biden has been discussing the proposals with constitutional scholars in recent months, and he had been inching toward announcing them when he ended his campaign. Progressives have urged him to move to limit the power of justices on the court, but he has not yet called for major changes.
A commission that Mr. Biden created in 2021 to examine the issues did not make specific recommendations, and he did not take any action. Since then, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, blocked gun control measures, eliminated affirmative action in college admissions, eroded its adherence to legal precedents and diminished L.G.B.T.Q. rights.
Mr. Biden has called the court’s immunity ruling a “dangerous precedent” that means “that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.” But a constitutional amendment limiting that decision would face challenges, requiring two-thirds votes in Congress or at a convention called for by two-thirds of the states, followed by ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures.
“I’m going to need your help on the Supreme Court, because I’m about to come out,” Mr. Biden said in a virtual meeting with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus this month. “I don’t want to prematurely announce it, but I’m about to come out with a major initiative on limiting the court and what we do.”
He added, “I’ve been working with constitutional scholars for the last three months, and I need some help.”
Former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee, denounced Mr. Biden’s ideas on social media this month, accusing him and Democrats of “desperately trying to ‘Play the Ref’ by calling for an illegal and unConstitutional attack on our SACRED United States Supreme Court.”
Mr. Biden’s appearance in Austin will be another opportunity for him to explain his decision to withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Ms. Harris, whose campaign has raised more than $200 million and garnered widespread support from the Democratic Party in a week.
“It gives us a really remarkable opportunity to see the president up close, to hear what he has to say about that decision, to hear what he has to say about the race that is going to unfold between now and November,” Mark A. Lawrence, the director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, told an ABC affiliate in Texas on Sunday.
Adding to the historic significance is Mr. Biden’s choice of venue for his first public engagement since leaving the race. Mr. Johnson was the last Democratic president to announce during an election year that he would not seek re-election.
Michael D. Shear contributed reporting.
Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent. For much of the past decade, she has focused on features about the presidency, the first family, and life in Washington, in addition to covering a range of domestic and foreign policy issues. She is the author of a book on first ladies. More about Katie Rogers"
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