The issue of the Supreme Court is becoming a bigger issue in the ongoing presidential election between Vice President Harris and former President Trump.
The nation’s highest court is always an issue in presidential elections because presidents have the power to appoint justices, but it’s even more important this year with Harris likely to replace Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Biden’s decision to drop out of the race and endorse Harris as his successor means the Democratic nominee will almost certainly be a Black or Indian American woman, adding new dimension to the debate over the impact of the conservative Supreme Court on issues such as abortion and affirmative action.
Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court during his four years in office, all of whom were part of the majority that struck down Roe v. Wade. The November clash between Harris, who has touted abortion rights on the campaign trail, and Trump will be the first since that ruling.
Finally, Biden has proposed significant reforms to the Supreme Court that Harris supports, providing a new forum for the debate Democrats aspire to about the court’s role and power in American society.
“The vast majority of Americans believe there is something seriously flawed about the Supreme Court,” said Alex Aronson, executive director of the liberal advocacy group Court Accountability.
Biden’s three-pronged proposal would impose 18-year term limits on the nine justices, allow a sitting president to appoint new justices every two years and establish binding codes of conduct. He also calls for a constitutional amendment to partially overturn the Supreme Court’s recent rulings on presidential immunity.
Reforming the Supreme Court would be difficult to achieve because it requires legislative action: a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as ratification by three-quarters of the U.S. states.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has already said that any bill pushing for “radical” reforms would “die as soon as it arrives” in the House.
Still, Ms. Harris’ support for the plan underscores how Democrats see an advantage in making a conservative Supreme Court mired in ethics scandals a major election issue.
The Supreme Court’s approval rating has plummeted in recent years, hitting an all-time low of 38% last month. Fox News Poll The trial comes after the Supreme Court granted Trump some criminal immunity for his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
That’s down 20 percentage points from a high of 58% in March 2017, before the confirmation of three Justices nominated by President Trump — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
“Harris knows this is a winnable issue,” said Dan Ehrman, a professor of law and political science at Northeastern University.
Harris has previously voiced a positive stance on Supreme Court reform, in contrast to Biden, who has taken a more cautious stance on the issue.
In 2019, Harris told Politico. To address declining trust in the Supreme Court, he said “everything is on the table,” from imposing term limits to adding more judge seats.
“We must meet this challenge head on,” she said at the time.
A campaign spokesman previously told The Hill that Harris does not support expanding the court.
Republicans quickly opposed Biden’s Supreme Court reform proposals, calling them a partisan effort to undermine the court’s conservative majority.
Lawmakers called the plan “no way” “Lawless” and “dangerousMeanwhile, Leonard Leo, a conservative judicial activist credited with pioneering the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, said the proposal was an attempt to “delegitimize” the court.
In an email to Harris, the Republican National Committee said she and other Democrats had “targeted” the Supreme Court for issuing decisions they disagreed with.
“it isGenuine“It’s a threat to democracy,” Monday’s email said.
But Ms. Harris may be especially well-suited to deliver the Democratic message, having served on the Senate Judiciary Committee as a senator and used her experience as a prosecutor to ask pointed questions of nominees, including President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.
Court reform itself did not have much support at the time, but Harris responded with “the right amount of political vigor and urgency,” said Aronson, who served as legal counsel to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Indiana on the committee during Harris’s tenure.
During Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, Harris grilled the nominee on a range of issues, from whether he discussed special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election with anyone to his stance on reproductive issues.
During one topical exchange, Ms. Harris asked Mr. Kavanaugh if he could think of a law that would give the government the power to “make decisions about men’s bodies.” Mr. Kavanaugh froze, then replied that he would answer “more specific questions.”
“Men versus women,” Harris responded bluntly, and after some back and forth, Kavanaugh responded, “I’m not thinking about it right now.”
Melissa Murray, a New York University law professor who specializes in reproductive rights, said Harris’s efforts to expand reproductive rights make court reform a “natural” fit for a presidential campaign, given the Supreme Court’s controversial decision two years ago overturning Roe v. Wade that is still reverberating across the country.
“She has been as committed to the issue of reproductive freedom as probably anybody in this administration,” Murray said.
A longtime supporter of abortion rights, the vice president has grown into a go-to White House voice on the issue, traveling the country earlier this year to speak about “reproductive freedom” and frequently criticizing President Trump for establishing a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court and appointing justices who ultimately struck down long-standing abortion protections.
Pushing court reform and reproductive rights in tandem could be particularly well received by young people who have been “pledging and advocating” for court reform, Murray said.
“They realize they were born into a world where certain rights were guaranteed and that was dramatically changed in one fell swoop and by one opinion,” she said.
While sweeping reforms have not always been popular, experts say the basics of Biden’s proposals are widely popular: 78% of Americans support limiting Supreme Court justices to 18 years in office, according to a Fox poll.
more Recent YouGov Poll Enforcing ethics rules is supported by 86 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Republicans, while term limits for judges are supported by 89 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of Republicans, the poll found.
“These are very modest proposals that the vice president signed as part of his campaign,” Murray said.
If Harris wins the election, Supreme Court reform could be crucial to whether she can deliver on her other campaign promises.
“If she’s serious about the policy priorities she’s trying to advance, she can’t pursue that agenda without also addressing the Supreme Court issue,” Aronson said.
