President Joe Biden argued that Congress should act to rein in the Supreme Court in a speech Monday that sought to build on frustration from Democrats over the justices’ recent decisions on presidential immunity and abortion to unify his party.
Biden’s remarks at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, during an event marking the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, pointed to a decade of the court’s decisions, along with fears about efforts to swing American law further to the right, to elevate the debate over the Supreme Court’s future.
Biden acknowledged staunch Republican opposition to his call for the three major changes: an enforceable ethics code, 18-year terms for justices and a constitutional amendment to reverse the recent decision granting presidents broad immunity from federal charges.
