Biden unveils plans to overhaul Supreme Court including no immunity for ex-presidents for crimes in office

President Joe Biden has unveiled his plans to overhaul the Supreme Court including term limits for justices, a binding ethics code and no immunity for former presidents for crimes committed while in office – in response to a string of controversial rulings and scandals plaguing the powerful, conservative-heavy court.

The president released his three-pronged proposal on Monday morning, saying the “bold plan” is necessary to “restore trust and accountability” in the nation’s highest court at a time when it is “mired in a crisis of ethics.”

In the proposal, Biden calls for term limits on Supreme Court justices – putting forward a system where the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend a maximum 18 years on the court. Biden points out that Congress approved term limits for the presidency over 75 years ago but that nothing similar exists for the most powerful court in the nation.

The second proposal is for a “common sense” binding, enforceable code of conduct and ethics rules where justices must disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases where they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.

Thirdly, Biden is proposing a constitutional amendment declaring that presidents do not have immunity from criminal prosecution for any crimes committed while in office.

This No One Is Above the Law Amendment comes directly in response to the court’s sweeping ruling that gave Donald Trump immunity from prosecution for so-called “official acts” taken while in office.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post laying out his proposal, Biden hit out at the presidential immunity ruling warning that it means “there are virtually no limits on what a president can do”.

“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. No one,” he wrote.

Biden warned that, under the landmark ruling, “there may be no legal consequences” for future January 6 Capitol riots.

“And that’s only the beginning,” he warned, adding that the US is “a nation of laws — not of kings or dictators.”

He concluded: “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.

“In America, no one is above the law. In America, the people rule.”

Biden is expected to speak about the proposal during a Monday trip to Austin, Texas, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.

Kamala Harris’ campaign pledged her support for the new measures in a statement saying these reforms “will help to restore confidence in the Court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law.”

Each prong of the proposed shake-up of the nation’s highest court takes aim at the various controversies and scandals that have embroiled the institution in recent years – plunging Americans’ confidence in the justices to a low.

This term, the court ruled that presidents have sweeping immunity from prosecution for “official actions” – but not for “unofficial actions.”

That bombshell ruling, which came in response to Trump’s efforts to toss the charges in his federal election interference case, has been widely condemned by scholars as well as the liberal justices on the court.

“The president is now a king above the law,” liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in her dissent.

This came off the back of a series of other controversial rulings – rulings that have upended decades of legal precedent – notably the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022, which wiped out the constitutional right of Americans to abortion care and 50 years of precedent.

Questions have been growing around potential conflicts of interest with some of the cases justices are hearing – as well as the influence that the justices’ personal politics are playing in their rulings.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito both refused to recus themselves from two major cases involving the January 6 Capitol riot – the immunity case and a case involving obstruction charges against a convicted rioter – despite calls for them to do so.

Alito, it emerged, had flown the same flags seen outside the Capitol on January 6 outside his homes in Virginia and New Jersey in the days after the insurrection.

Thomas, meanwhile, has accepted millions of dollars in gifts from individuals with business before the court, investigations have revealed.

His wife, Ginny Thomas, was also involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Trump’s favor, with texts revealing she urged Arizona officials to reverse Biden’s win in the state.

With scandals growing, the Supreme Court’s approval rating has plunged in recent years, with a Marquette University poll released in May 2024 finding that a staggering 61 percent of Americans now disapprove of the job the court is doing.

In the past, Biden has resisted calls to bring about changes to the court, including calls to pack the court to even out the liberal-to-conservative-justice ratio.

The court is currently heavily skewed 6-3 conservative to liberal justices and three of those conservative justices were nominated by Trump. The appointment of Amy Coney Barrett was especially contentious, coming in the waning days of Trump’s presidency.