President Biden is reportedly set to unveil proposals to fundamentally overhaul the Supreme Court on Monday.
The 81-year-old president’s plan would call for term limits for judges, an enforceable ethics code and a constitutional amendment limiting immunity for the president and other publicly held officials. Politico reported on friday.
Biden is scheduled to speak in Austin on Monday and is expected to announce the plan during a visit to the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library in Austin.
In an Oval Office address to the nation on Wednesday, the president said pushing for reform of the Supreme Court is one of his top priorities for the remainder of his term.
“I want to reform the Supreme Court because this is vital to our democracy,” Biden said in a speech explaining his decision to drop out of the presidential race.
The president’s three-pronged plan faces difficulties.
Enforcing ethics rules and imposing term limits on the Supreme Court’s nine justices would likely require congressional legislation, but a divided Congress is unlikely to take up the issue in the remaining six months of Biden’s term.
Biden is pushing for a constitutional amendment to limit immunity following the Supreme Court’s July 1 confirmation that presidents, including former President Donald Trump, have absolute immunity for acts of official conduct. However, any such amendment would require the approval of more than two-thirds of both houses of Congress, or more than three-quarters of state legislatures, as required by two-thirds of states.
Democrats on the left have called for expanding the Supreme Court or imposing term limits since President Trump, 78, appointed three conservative justices during his first term, expanding the conservative majority to 6-3.
Democrats have also been calling for ethics reform after it emerged last year that Justice Clarence Thomas had failed to disclose a trip he took with his friend, Harlan Crow, a wealthy Republican donor.
The White House did not respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment.
