Biden says he will back Supreme Court reform, but a strategy has yet to materialize

WASHINGTON (CN) — President Joe Biden’s public endorsement of Supreme Court reform has been an energizing prospect for its proponents on Capitol Hill — but there is still little information about how exactly the White House plans to insert itself into efforts to clamp down on the high court.

During a Wednesday night address where he explained his decision to withdraw from the presidential race and laid out his vision for the final months of his term, Biden placed the ongoing debate over ethical malfeasance at the Supreme Court near the top of his priorities.

“I’m going to call for Supreme Court reform, because this is critical to our democracy,” the president said.

Biden’s remarks come after weeks of reports that the White House was weighing a more active role in efforts by congressional Democrats to counter what some say is an effort by conservative legal activists to gain outsized influence over the high court.

Amid reports that Supreme Court justices failed to report expensive gifts from wealthy conservative benefactors and some jurists’ refusal to recuse from cases related to the 2020 election, lawmakers have brought forward a tranche of bills aimed at, among other things, addressing the high court’s comparatively lax ethical standards.

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act, for example, would require the court to develop an enforceable code of ethical standards and make it available for public comment. The measure would also create a review board of U.S. circuit court judges to adjudicate ethics complaints against the justices.

Other legislation brought forward by Supreme Court hawks in recent months would implement term limits for justices and expand the bench to 13 members from the current nine.

Though lawmakers fighting for Supreme Court reform said they were pleased with the president’s invocation Wednesday night, the path forward for collaboration with the White House remains murky.

“I couldn’t be happier that they’re moving in this direction,” Whitehouse told Courthouse News outside the Senate chamber Thursday afternoon. He mentioned that his office was already in touch with the Biden administration on the issue.

“It’s time,” Whitehouse said, adding that he thought Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, would also be on board with the effort and may even provide a little more “oomph” to Supreme Court reform.

Georgia Representative Hank Johnson, who has championed Supreme Court reform on the House side, told Courthouse News Thursday morning that he had not yet met with the White House regarding their involvement, but said such a meeting could come as soon as next week.

Asked whether he’d work with the White House to push through changes on the Supreme Court, Johnson said, “No question about it.”

The Georgia Democrat said he was hopeful that President Biden would specifically propose support for his Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act, which would impose 18-year term limits for justices.

Johnson spoke to reporters on the steps of the Supreme Court, on the sidelines of an event during which he and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey advocated for a separate bill that would add four new seats to the high court bench.

Markey told reporters that President Biden was developing a proposal for addressing Supreme Court reform.

“In terms of our perspective on this — they know where we are,” the lawmaker said, “and we’re also looking forward to seeing what the president is going to propose.”

Republicans meanwhile have vowed to defeat any effort to clamp down on ethical issues at the Supreme Court or otherwise alter the court’s structure. GOP lawmakers have argued that Democrats are determined to punish conservative justices for a string of recent rulings.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a harsh critic of Supreme Court reform, told reporters Thursday afternoon that any legislation aimed at regulating the high court would be “dead on arrival.”

In the wake of Biden’s remarks Wednesday, some of the Supreme Court’s justices have even voiced support for certain reforms. Justice Elena Kagan, one of the bench’s more liberal members, said at the U.S. Judicial Conference Thursday that she would support a mechanism similar to the judicial review board proposed in Senator Whitehouse’s legislation.

The Supreme Court last year adopted an ethics code signed by all nine justices. Critics of the new standards have argued that it lacks a solid enforcement system.

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