Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) on Monday slammed President Joe Biden for proposing radical changes to the Supreme Court, warning that the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez made a similar move shortly after his election.
A hardline socialist dictator, Chavez was elected president of Venezuela in 1999 and quickly used his power to undermine the country’s democratic institutions. Upon his death in 2013, his successor, Nicolás Maduro, used state violence to silence dissent and eliminate the possibility of free and fair elections that could have ended the “Bolivarian Revolution.” Unlike Chavez, Maduro’s efforts were significantly strengthened by a socialist-leaning majority Supreme Court, giving him dramatic powers to silence the National Assembly and Federal Congress, and to arrest or silence political opponents.
Maduro has committed at least seven fraudulent elections since taking power more than a decade ago, the most recent of which took place on Sunday. The regime-controlled National Electoral Center (CNE) said Maduro “won” the election with 51.2% of the vote, but has not released any election data to back up the claim. Opposition leaders claim they have evidence showing they defeated Maduro in a landslide victory.
Three South Florida lawmakers took Venezuela’s ongoing socialist crisis as a cautionary tale in response to President Biden’s essay before Congress. The Washington Post Democrats have called for dramatic constitutional changes that would undermine the Supreme Court’s independence, and they released a video Monday outlining their concerns about Biden’s proposal.
🚨The first thing socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro did was #Venezuela It was to “reform” the highest court in the land in order to undermine democracy and maintain power!
As lawmakers and those who represent the asylum community, we reject Biden’s call to “reform” the Supreme Court! pic.twitter.com/Zs4YWgpHEY
— Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (@RepCarlos) July 29, 2024
“This is outrageous and goes against our system and what makes America exceptional,” Salazar said.
“Yesterday’s attempt by the Maduro regime to invalidate the election and maintain its hold on power is a prime example of the threats to democracy,” Jimenez said. “What was the first thing Hugo Chavez did when he became president 24 years ago? He reformed Venezuela’s Supreme Court.”
“What are they doing now? They are using the same court system to try to put the opposition leader, Maria Corina, in prison. [Machado] “She’s alleging that she’s colluding with North Macedonia,” he continued. “Tapping into the justice system is a way to maintain power, and this is really dangerous to national security, to our security, and to the security of our democracy here in the United States.”
Machado, a former congressman who was violently ousted from office in 2014, was the leading candidate for president in Venezuela’s sham elections in 2024. He won the opposition primary and was nominated in October, but President Maduro used Venezuela’s highest court, officially the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ), to “annul” the primary. President Maduro also barred Machado from holding public office for his support of U.S. human rights sanctions against the Venezuelan regime.
“This has happened many times in history when someone has tried to change the system for political reasons,” Rep. Diaz-Balart said. “The Supreme Court, by the way, has played a vital role in upholding the rule of law and democracy in this country.”
“This is not the first time the left has spoken about reforming or changing the Supreme Court, but it is extremely dangerous, unacceptable and a real threat to our democracy.”
Lawmakers received The motion also has the backing of a fourth Cuban-American congressman, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), who recalled on Monday that “Hugo Chavez packed Venezuela’s Supreme Court with between 20 and 32 justices who repeatedly ruled in favor of his corrupt government, thus destroying the richest country in South America.”
Biden was suggested Biden on Monday called the US Supreme Court’s current behavior “not normal” and said the court was “misbehaving in a breach of its duties,” and proposed making three fundamental changes to the Supreme Court. Biden proposes eliminating presidential immunity for actions taken in office, overturning recent Supreme Court decisions and decades of precedent, limiting justices’ terms to 18 years, and imposing an “ethics code” on judges.
“Judges should be required 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,” Biden wrote.
Biden’s article does not say who would be responsible for writing the “Ethics Code” or why Supreme Court justices should serve 18-year terms instead of 20 or 15. The three proposals are patently unconstitutional and would significantly expand the power of the legislative and executive branches over the Supreme Court, weakening its power.
Other Democrats have backed Biden, arguing that the Supreme Court is “undermining our democracy” and that shortening unconstitutional court procedures is a viable solution to this perceived problem.
Biden announced the radical proposal after dropping out of the 2024 presidential race over concerns he doesn’t have the cognitive capacity to handle the duties of the office, and a Rasmussen Reports poll this week found that more than half of Americans believe Biden should leave office before his term ends in January.
Venezuela’s STJ functions as an almost entirely different institution today than it did when Chavez was elected in 1999. The failed coup leader-turned-president waited until 2004 to weaken the judiciary after the failed 2002 coup. That year, as Congressman Malliotakis pointed out, Chavez Increased Increase the number of STJ judges from 20 to 32; Chavista Loyalist to the court.
“In addition to the appointments of the 12 new judges, five additional judges were appointed to fill vacancies that had opened in recent months, and a further 32 were appointed as alternate judges,” Human Rights Watch noted at the time.
Human Rights Watch continued:
Members and allies of Chavez’s V Republic Movement hold a majority in Congress, and a Supreme Court law signed last May gave the ruling coalition the power to remove judges from the court without the two-thirds majority required by the constitution.
“By appointing 12 new judges to the Supreme Court, Venezuela’s Congress has dealt a serious blow to the independence of the Venezuelan judiciary,” Human Rights Watch said.
Chavez too Faced It has received criticism from neighboring countries and regional organizations such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), but has largely ignored it.
Under Maduro, the STJ took on a more prominent role in repression, effectively weakening the power of the National Assembly after the opposition, which included both socialist and non-socialist elements, gained a majority in the 2015 congressional elections that are widely considered to be the last free and fair elections in Venezuela’s history.
Shortly after the election, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal parliament, the National Assembly, had no legislative powers under the law. In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled to completely dissolve the National Assembly, an unconstitutional measure imposed by President Maduro using the powers of the military.
“Unfortunately, our warnings have come true,” Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), said at the time. “The Secretary General of the OAS condemns the self-destructive coup launched by the Venezuelan regime against the National Assembly, the last governmental institution legitimated by the will of the Venezuelan people.”
In 2020, far-left former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet became head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Published The report concludes that “the independence of the judiciary is seriously undermined by the precarious detention of judges and prosecutors, a lack of transparency in the appointment process, precarious working conditions and political interference.”
