President Biden fumed Monday about how Senate Republicans blocked the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court but confirmed Amy Coney Barrett — calling it a “blatant attack on nominating and confirming justices to the court itself.”
Biden groused about the tactics underpinning the court’s rightward shift as he described proposed Supreme Court reforms that would establish term limits of 18 years and mandate a new ethics code for justices — a bundle widely interpreted as a messaging drive rather than a serious legislative push.
“Y’all remember when Justice [Antonin] Scalia died in February of 2016 and the Republicans blocked our — the president’s nomination, President Obama’s nomination to fill that vacancy for nearly a year by making up an entirely new standard that there be no confirmations of the court during an election year,” Biden said in a speech at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas.
“But then, when Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg died in 2020, Republicans rushed through the President Trump’s nominee at the very same time, votes are being cast in an election that Trump would lose. It’s outrageous!”
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), at the time Senate majority leader, spearheaded Republican strategy in the Supreme Court confirmation battles — arguing in 2020 that he was not hypocritical in pursuing Barrett’s nomination but not Garland’s.
Four Biden proposals to remake the Supreme Court and backed by Harris:
- The Supreme Court justices would be limited to 18 years on the bench.
- Presidents could only nominate one justice every two years.
- New ethics code would require justices to disclose gifts, not engage in political activities and avoid conflicts of interest involving themselves or their spouses.
- A constitutional amendment would reverse the court’s ruling that presidents have immunity for time in which they took in office.
McConnell said that waiting until after an election was “the historically normal outcome when you have divided government.”
Biden nominated Garland in 2021 to serve as attorney general. Republicans frequently accuse him of political bias including criminal investigations connected to Biden and his family and prosecutions against former President Donald Trump.