JUST IN: Biden Outlines Three-Part Plan to Reform Supreme Court in Washington Post Column

(Shawn Thew/Pool via AP)

President Joe Biden outlined his three-part plan to reform the Supreme Court in a Monday morning column for the Washington Post.

Biden opened his column by noting the “simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law” before noting the conservative-leaning Supreme Court recently voted 6-3 to grant presidents “broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office, means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do. The only limits will be those that are self-imposed by the person occupying the Oval Office.”

“If a future president incites a violent mob to storm the Capitol and stop the peaceful transfer of power — like we saw on Jan. 6, 2021 — there may be no legal consequences,” he wrote. “And that’s only the beginning.”

From there, the now-lame duck president, who ironically now has unlimited immunity for all “official acts,” laid out his three-part plan for reforming the highest court in the nation. To wit:

“No One Is Above the Law Amendment”:

First, I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is Above the Law Amendment. It would make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office. I share our Founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute. We are a nation of laws — not of kings or dictators.

“Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices”:

Second, we have had term limits for presidents for nearly 75 years. We should have the same for Supreme Court justices. The United States is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court. Term limits would help ensure that the court’s membership changes with some regularity. That would make timing for court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary. It would reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come. I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court.

“Binding Code of Conduct”

Third, I’m calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court. This is common sense. The court’s current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced. Justices should be required to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. Every other federal judge is bound by an enforceable code of conduct, and there is no reason for the Supreme Court to be exempt.

The code of conduct allegation comes as a number of controversies have sprung up in the past year or two, particularly focused on Justice Samuel Alito’s family flag proclivities and Justice Clarence Thomas’s cozy relationship with a politically-minded billionaire who bankrolled a number of luxury vacations for the conservative justice.

“We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power. We can and must restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy,” Biden concludes. “In America, no one is above the law. In America, the people rule.”

Read the entire column here.