Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) excoriated the proposed changes to the Supreme Court that President Joe Biden unveiled on Monday a...
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) excoriated the proposed changes to the Supreme Court that President Joe Biden unveiled on Monday and declared they would be “dead on arrival” in the House.
The proposal, which comes at a time when the high court has a 6-3 conservative majority, seeks 18-year term limits and an enforceable ethics code for justices. It also pushes for an amendment to crack down on presidential immunity after a ruling in July that favored former President Donald Trump.
“Biden’s proposal to radically overhaul the U.S. Supreme Court would tilt the balance of power and erode not only the rule of law, but the American people’s faith in our system of justice,” Johnson said in a post on X. “This proposal is the logical conclusion to the Biden-Harris Administration and Congressional Democrats’ ongoing efforts to delegitimize the Supreme Court.”
Johnson also warned that Democrats’ calls to “expand and pack” the Supreme Court “will soon resume.”
Biden, 81, who recently dropped out of the 2024 race, unveiled his proposal for reforming the high court with an op-ed in The Washington Post that cited gripes with some of its rulings in recent years, including on abortion and presidential immunity, as well as transparency issues related to the justices themselves.
“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,” he wrote. “That’s why — in the face of increasing threats to America’s democratic institutions — I am calling for three bold reforms to restore trust and accountability to the court and our democracy.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Biden has endorsed as his successor, supports the plan and called on lawmakers to pass the reforms. So does the Democrat chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. However, Johnson signaled that the proposed changes would not even get a vote in the lower chamber under his leadership.
“It is telling that Democrats want to change the system that has guided our nation since its founding simply because they disagree with some of the Court’s recent decisions,” Johnson said. “This dangerous gambit of the Biden-Harris Administration is dead on arrival in the House.”
Although Biden’s proposal faces long odds in making it through Congress at the moment, that may change if Republicans get blown out in the 2024 election. Still, even the Democrat-led Senate failed to overcome GOP opposition to pass a Supreme Court ethics bill earlier this year.
No comments