President also says presidential immunity for crimes should be removed and ethics rules for justices should be stricter

President also says presidential immunity for crimes should be removed and ethics rules for justices should be stricter

Joe Biden has called for a series of reforms to the US Supreme Court, including the introduction of term limits for justices and a constitutional amendment to remove immunity for crimes committed by a president while in office.

In an op-ed published on Monday morning, the president said justices should be limited to a maximum of 18 years’ service on the court rather than the current lifetime appointment, and also said ethics rules should be strengthened to regulate justices’ behavior.

The call for reform comes after the supreme court ruled in early July that former presidents have some degree of immunity from prosecution, a decision that served as a major victory for Donald Trump amid his legal travails.

“This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States,” Biden wrote.

  • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
    3·
    4 months ago

    Yeah - you’d basically set up an 18-year cycle of appointments every 2 years with each seat up once per cycle.

    I’d be okay with locking-in the number of seats on the Court at that point as well. Adding or removing seats would really screw with the system, and 9 seats with 18 year terms really does work out brilliantly mathematically.

    Only once since the Civil War has a President been elected to replace a President of the same party (Reagan - > HW Bush), so keeping a 2-term President from being able to appoint a majority would probably result in a fairly balanced Court.

    Also limiting them to 1 term offers the same political immunity a lifetime appointment does.

    The more I think about it the more I like it.