President also considering support for constitutional amendment to eliminate immunity for top officeholders<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joe Biden plans to endorse term limits for supreme court justices and a new ethics code, the Washington Post reported<\/a>, as an emboldened rightwing court continues to upend US legal precedent despite operating under the cloud of multiple ethics scandals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden is also mulling whether to call for a new constitutional amendment that would eliminate sweeping immunity for presidents and other officials, the Post reported, citing two unnamed people familiar with the president\u2019s thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court\u2019s ruling on 1 July establishing sweeping immunity for US presidents has been widely criticized as an attack on the rule of law<\/a> that gives presidents the power of a king<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent weeks, Biden had a phone call with Laurence Tribe, a leading constitutional scholar, to discuss Tribe\u2019s opinion piece in the Guardian<\/a> proposing concrete steps to reform the supreme court, which included new term limits, an \u201cenforceable ethics code\u201d and an amendment limiting presidential immunity, the Post reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among additional reforms Americans should consider, Tribe wrote in that piece, was the idea of creating \u201cseveral added seats [on the court] to offset the way Trump as president stacked the court to favor his Maga agenda\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But adding justices to the court, as some Democratic members of Congress\u2002have advocated<\/a> for, is not among the reforms Biden is currently considering, according to the Post. Biden has long been seen as unwilling<\/a> to expand the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tribe did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The president previewed his plans for supreme court reform in a Zoom call with the Congressional Progressive caucus on Saturday, the Post reported, citing a transcript of the call that included Biden telling members that \u201cI\u2019m about to come out with a major initiative on limiting the court\u201d and that he had been \u201cworking with constitutional scholars for the last three months\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The supreme court\u2019s approval rating in polls of the American public has dropped sharply<\/a> in recent years, as the court has overturned the constitutional right to abortion, expanded gun rights and seized regulatory power from federal agencies<\/a> and taken it into its own hands. In one recent poll, 61% of respondents<\/a> said they disapproved of the job the court had been doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n