President Joe Biden recently announced a plan he hopes to use to rein in the Supreme Court, which Democrats have been attacking for several years, claiming the court is corrupt.
The leftist anger at the high court is always tied to decisions that Democrats disagree with, such as the 2022 overturning of the abortion law Roe vs Wade. Democrat lawmakers and leaders, such as Vice President Kamala Harris, falsely claimed that the Supreme Court took away women’s rights. In actual fact, the decision to overturn Roe did not ban abortion, it merely returned the right to regulate the practice to the states, as had been the status quo until the original Roe decision in 1973.
Now, Biden wants to throw out the lifetime tenure of Supreme Court justices and cap it at 18 years. He also wants a legally binding code of ethics for the court. But most radically, Biden is actually pushing a Constitutional amendment to specifically override the court’s recent 6-3 decision ruling that presidents have immunity from prosecution for official acts conducted as part of their presidential duties.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer seems to be trying to ride the fence. He hasn’t come out in favor of Biden’s plan, but he’s had caustic words for the Supreme Court. In a recent interview, Schumer called the Supreme Court a “morass, both ethically and substantively.” But he would not say whether he endorsed Biden’s approach, stating only that he is reviewing it.
Biden, who stepped down from the presidential campaign recently to be replaced by unpopular Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democrats’ nominee, is shopping his proposal to the public. In a July 29 speech, Biden laid out his plans and said the Democrats are going to “look at all of them.”
Schumer’s failure to full-throatedly endorse Biden’s policy proposals is in line with the muted reaction from fellow Democrats. They clearly want more control over the Supreme Court, but few are willing to publicly commit to specifics.
Vice President Harris, however, has endorsed the Biden plan, as expected.
Regardless of the specific issue, Constitutional amendments are long shots by design. The framers of our system of government deliberately made it possible, but difficult, to amend the founding document in an attempt to remove the Constitution from being endangered by temporary passions
For a Constitutional amendment to succeed, two-thirds of states, or two-thirds of Congress, would need to initially propose it. For it to succeed, three quarters of the 50 states would need to ratify it.
