WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris said Monday she and President Biden are proposing an unlikely plan to reform the Supreme Court that Republicans have decried as politicizing the judicial system.
“President Biden and I are calling on Congress to pass important reforms, from imposing term limits on judges’ active service to holding judges to the same binding ethics rules as other federal judges. And finally, in our democracy, no one should be above the law, so we must ensure that former presidents are not held accountable for crimes they committed while in the White House,” Harris said in a statement.
“These publicly supported reforms will help restore confidence in the Supreme Court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure that no one is above the law.”
The Biden-Harris proposal includes provisions to limit Supreme Court justices to 18 years in term time and require justices to disclose gifts, avoid public political activity and resign if they or their spouses have a conflict of interest.
Harris, 59, said she helped develop the plan, which is focused on publicly criticizing conservative judges, as she enters her second week as the Democratic presidential nominee after Biden, 81, decided not to run for a second term.
The proposed reforms will breathe new life into the controversy surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative who has served on the bench for nearly 33 years.
Thomas is married to conservative activist Ginni Thomas, and has been criticized by Democrats for accepting unpaid and undisclosed time off from billionaire Harlan Crow, whose dealings were kept secret from the courts, even though Biden himself has not listed the unpaid time off in his annual ethics report.
The reforms are also likely to bring new coverage to conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who has served in the court for more than 18 years and whose wife flew the American flag upside down around the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said the reforms would not pass.
“President Biden’s proposed sweeping overhaul of the U.S. Supreme Court would upset the balance of power and undermine not only the rule of law but also the American people’s confidence in our judicial system,” Johnson said on Monday.
“This proposal is the logical conclusion of the Biden-Harris Administration and congressional Democrats’ ongoing efforts to delegitimize the Supreme Court. Their calls to expand and staff the Supreme Court will soon be resumed. It’s easy to see why Democrats want to change the system that has guided our country since its founding simply because they disagree with some of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions. This dangerous ploy by the Biden-Harris Administration will fail the moment it passes the House of Representatives.”
Harris has campaigned on her plans to restore abortion rights at the federal level after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, returning abortion policy to the states and leading to severe restrictions on the procedure in many states.
