In the same Washington Post op-ed in which President Joe Biden calls the Supreme Court “not normal” and responsible for “dangerous and extreme decisions,” he admits, “I have overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today.”
Hmmm.
If one buys into the premise of a Supreme Court so structurally damaged as to require outside repair, then one must assign a great deal of responsibility to Joe Biden. He boasts, after all, that he oversaw more nominations “than anyone living today.”
If he wielded more influence on the process that resulted in such a disaster, then maybe encouraging him to solve the problem he helped create does not make for such a good idea.
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Biden offers three fixes, one of which only tangentially involves the high court.
First, the 81-year-old president was recently prevented from running for reelection because, if one can believe Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh’s reporting, of threats to invoke the 25th Amendment by Barack Obama and Kamala Harris. But he wants term limits for Supreme Court justices, the oldest of which entered the world six years after he did. Biden, of course, has held political office almost continuously since the age of 27, which seems a). an awfully long time for this idea not to heretofore occur to him; and b). a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do approach in the extreme.
Second, the president, whose family raked in millions from China, Ukraine, and points beyond, insists that justices must “refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.”
Finally, the president wants to reverse the court’s Trump v. United States ruling that provides presidents broad immunity for acts undertaken while in office. This ruling covers, presumably, the legal harassment engineered by the White House to kneecap Donald Trump and not just the crimes alleged by that legal harassment pursued by the former president’s political enemies.
Elsewhere in his article, the president, ostensibly in passing, cites questions about the court’s “impartiality” and overturning “settled legal precedent.” This seems the heart of the matter. The entire edifice of modern progressive jurisprudence — Roe v. Wade, Kelo v. New London, Engel v. Vitale, Furman v. Georgia, and beyond — relies on overturning “settled legal precedent.” So, not the principle but the particular here outrages the Left, which desperately wants a partial court. This comes off as a projection similar to the longstanding claim that the party whose presidents nominated most of the justices who sided with the majority on Roe v. Wade (Blackmun, Stewart, Brennan, Powell, Burger) and the majority of post-Roe nominees (Stevens, O’Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Roberts) until Trump’s inauguration who refused to overturn Roe.
Biden Is Only Interested in Justice When it Favors Him
Joe Biden did not begin using the law for partisan means when he sicced his Justice Department on his political bête noire. As chairman of the judiciary committee, he presided over the vile ideological show trials disguised as confirmation hearings of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. On a purely ideological basis, he voted against John Roberts becoming chief justice just as he had voted against William Rehnquist becoming chief justice. In fact, since Antonin Scalia ascended to the high court, Biden voted just one Republican nominee (Souter) to the Supreme Court.
The alpha, if not omega, explaining his past stonewalling of GOP nominees and present scheme for the court is abortion. Secondarily, Biden and other Democrats remain frustrated by a court that does not provide a green light to unconstitutional schemes, such as the CDC wielding imagined power to compel landlords not to raise rents.
The president says he wants to depoliticize the courts as he aggressively puts the Supreme Court on the ballot this November. The latter exposes the dishonesty of the former.
Joe Biden, a big part of the problem for the last four decades, remains clueless regarding a solution. It vexes a man who champions “democracy” that this court refuses to allow unelected usurpers in the bureaucracy to make law or one court to dictate the abortion laws of all 50 states. And, so, he reacts much like a predecessor also frustrated by a court loyal to law and not to him.
Franklin Roosevelt more ambitiously sought to add seats to the court to ensure a majority to his liking. Despite Republicans occupying just 16 seats in the Senate and fewer than 100 in the House, his court-packing scheme failed miserably. Biden faces a majority of Republicans in the House and enjoys a slight majority in the Senate.
This is a public relations stunt disguised as a serious proposal.