United States: In a recent development, President Biden endorsed a sweeping change to the SC on Monday, asking for eighteen-year term limits for the justices and binding, thereby enforcing the ethics code for the high court.
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He also urgently demands a constitutional change that will bar Presidents from receiving blanket immunity. This is in response to the Supreme Court’s decision on the current issue of immunity of former presidents, which ruled this month that former President Donald Trump cannot be prosecuted for official activities.
For Biden, who has consistently dodged pressure to heed the call to reform the Supreme Court, Monday’s statement signifies a strategic change of position regarding one of the United States’ three branches of government.
Since Biden took office, the Supreme Court has shifted rightward, revoking Roe v. Wade, ending affirmative action in college admissions, limiting agencies’ rule-making authority, overturning a 40-year ruling, and canceling Biden’s student-debt relief program.
Biden said, “I have overseen more Supreme Court nominations as a senator, vice president, and president than anyone living today,” as the Washington Post reported.
“I have great respect for our institutions and separation of powers. What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach,” continued Biden.
The president would endorse the changes publicly during a State of the Union address at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin in response to the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.
The Post previously wrote that Biden was to demand the following three changes.
The chance of changes is slim
The calls, however, are mostly inspirational at this precinct since the chances of implementing such transformations are less. Term limits and, here, an ethics code are within congressional discretion, and the Republican-controlled House will not endorse the two.
Both proposals also need 60 votes in the Senate, and the Democrats currently hold only fifty-one seats in the chamber.
In order to go through the constitutional amendment, further steps are needed, such as gaining the support of two-thirds of the members in both chambers or calling a convention involving two-thirds of the states.
The amendment will have to passed by a majority of the states, comprising 3/4ths of each state’s legislature, as the Washington Post reported.
Biden also proposed the amendment called Biden that the “No One Is Above the Law Amendment” and the “Constitution does not confer any immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction, or sentencing by virtue of previously serving as president.”
Moreover, Biden added, “This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one,” in his op-ed to explain his decision.
The splitting along ideological lines of the immunity for the Supreme Court led to the chances of Trump’s trial for attempting to obstruct the 2020 election before the votes in the current presidential race this year nearly impossible.