What Biden's proposed Supreme Court reform could mean for Arizonans
With less than six months left in office, Biden announced his plan to reform the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week over what he called “increasing threats to America’s democratic institutions."
Biden called on Congress to back his plan and impose restrictions and a code of ethics on the court.
According to experts, Biden's action can represent the negative view some Americans have of the justices.
“There is very low approval right now,” said Lisa Maga?a, professor at the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University, of the Supreme Court. “Partly because I think they're seen as very much partisan which they’re not supposed to be.”
According to a Pew Research Center study released in 2023, favorable ratings of the Supreme Court fell 26 percentage points since 2020, making it the first time since 1987 that the majority of Americans held a negative view of the court at about 54%.
“This Court has gutted civil rights protections, taken away a woman’s right to choose, and now granted Presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office,” Biden said in a press release on Monday. Under Trump’s presidency, three new justices were appointed which led to a 6-3 conservative majority in the court that has upended many long-standing protections that Biden believes to be fundamental rights.
Members of Congress have criticized Biden's reform, such as Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, who expressed that the Supreme Court was under attack, while many Democratic senators plan to back Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, as he plans to introduce the No Kings Act that rejects the Court's decision for presidential immunity.
What are the three reforms Biden proposed
In response to the Court's ruling that no current or former president can be prosecuted for actions taken while they were in office, Biden proposed the No One Is Above The Law Amendment, which states that the Constitution does not protect presidents from, “federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction, or sentencing.”
Biden also proposed term limits on Supreme Court justices that would change the makeup of the Supreme Court entirely every 18 years. Under Biden’s plan, the president would select a new justice every two years. Currently, justices are allowed to serve for an unlimited amount of time; Clarence Thomas, the oldest serving current Supreme Court, has been serving since 1991.
The last reform calls for a code of ethics, similar to federal judges, which would require court justices 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.”
These reforms follow similar rules set in place for judges at the federal and state level.
“Abortion, immigration, voting rights, gun safety and climate change — those issues really do matter, and so we want to make sure that the way that the Supreme Court operates is in line with how the state courts operate as well,” said Sena Mohammed, executive director of Our Voice, Our Vote Arizona.
How Biden's reform can impact Arizona
In Arizona, state supreme court justices serve six-year terms and are not allowed to accept gifts that may impact their impartiality. If Congress passes Biden’s reforms, it could bring Supreme Court justices to stricter standards similar to Arizona’s Supreme Court justices and impact existing Arizona laws.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, abortion was no longer protected under the U.S. Constitution. States were left with the power to impose their own abortion laws which led to Arizona restricting the right to an abortion from 23 to 24 weeks gestational age, down to 15 weeks.
Much room is left open to interpretation when states are left to decide on major legislations, Maga?a said.“Arizona's gotten into trouble when they take immigration into their own hands and supersede the federal government,” said Maga?a. “What would happen if the state was allowed to do whatever it wanted, for example, with SB 1070?”
SB 1070, also known as the “show me your papers law”, had three of the four provisions struck down by the Supreme Court in 2012. Had the law been brought up under the current 6-3 conservative majority, a very different decision could have been handed down, Maga?a said.
When the court overturned affirmative action in June 2023, this meant that race would no longer be a determining factor for students being admitted to colleges and universities. In Arizona, this didn’t have much of an impact as Proposition 107 in 2010 banned preferential treatment on the basis of “race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.”
Laws that aimed to protect immigrants, women, and other marginalized communities have been challenged and will continue to be challenged under the current Supreme Court. According to Mohammed, Biden's plan is welcomed by those who seek to protect the progress built up by previous voters throughout the generations.
“I believe that reforming the court is essential to really ensuring that we're protecting progress on everything that we care about,” said Mohammed. “People of color and married women and young people are the new American majority. We make up 64% of all voters, but this court keeps constraining our freedom.”
Reach La Voz reporter Erick Trevi?o at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: What Biden's Supreme Court reform means for Arizonans
