WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris said Monday that she is jointly proposing alongside President Biden a long-shot plan to remake the Supreme Court — which Republicans denounced as politicizing the legal system.
“President Biden and I are calling on Congress to pass important reforms – from imposing term limits for Justices’ active service, to requiring Justices to comply with binding ethics rules just like every other federal judge. And finally, in our democracy, no one should be above the law. So we must also ensure that no former President has immunity for crimes committed while in the White House.” Harris said in a statement.
“These popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the Court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law.”
The Biden-Harris proposals include an 18-year term limit for Supreme Court justices and requirements that justices disclose gifts, avoid public political activity and recuse themselves if they or their spouses have conflicts of interest.
Harris, 59, claimed credit for helping formulate the plan — which serves primarily to publicize criticism of conservative justices — as she began her second week as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, following 81-year-old Biden’s decision to abandon his pursuit of a second term.
The reform package breathes a fresh round of coverage into controversies involving conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, on the bench for nearly 33 years.
Thomas is married to conservative activist Ginni Thomas and faces Democratic denunciation for accepting free and undisclosed vacations from billionaire Harlan Crow, who had no known business before the court — even though Biden himself has failed to list free vacations on his annual ethics forms.
The reforms also are likely to bring another round of coverage to conservative Justice Samuel Alito, serving for more than 18 years, whose wife hanged an American flag upside down around the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the bundle of reforms would not pass.
“President 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 Monday.
“This proposal is the logical conclusion to the Biden-Harris Administration and Congressional Democrats’ ongoing efforts to delegitimize the Supreme Court. Their calls to expand and pack the Court will soon resume. 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. This dangerous gambit of the Biden-Harris Administration is dead on arrival in the House.”
Harris has campaigned heavily on her plans to restore federal abortion rights following the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion policy to the states, prompting many to sharply restrict the procedures.