President Joe Biden said on Monday he was pushing for legislation that would bring major changes to the Supreme Court, including imposing term limits and creating an enforceable code of ethics on the justices.

In an opinion essay in The Washington Post, Biden also said that the court’s decision to grant broad immunity to presidents for crimes they commit in office was an example of “dangerous and extreme” decision-making that had put the American people at risk. He added that a number ethical concerns posed a threat to the integrity of the court.

“What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,” Biden wrote.

“We now stand in a breach.”

Biden is scheduled to speak at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, his first public engagement since announcing his decision to end his presidential campaign last week. His speech will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and propose overhauling the court, an effort that requires congressional approval and has little hope of gaining traction in a Republican-controlled House and a divided Senate.

In a statement sent by her campaign, Vice-President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, praised efforts to change the court and said she was a partner in the effort.

“These popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the court, strengthen our democracy and ensure no one is above the law,” she said.

In his remarks, Biden is expected to argue that the current system of lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices gives a President undue influence for decades. He will propose a process in which a President would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years on the bench.

Biden supports a code of conduct that would require 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, according to the plan the White House laid out.

He will also call for a constitutional amendment that could limit the broad presidential immunity that the court’s 6-to-3 conservative majority backed at the end of its term last month.

That amendment would state that the Constitution does not confer any immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction or sentencing by virtue of previously serving as President, the White House said.

Biden has been discussing the proposals with constitutional scholars in recent months, and he had been inching towards announcing them when he ended his campaign. Progressives have urged him to move to limit the power of justices on the court, but he has not yet called for changes.

A commission that Biden created in 2021 to examine the issues did not make specific recommendations, and he did not take any action. Since then, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, blocked gun control measures, eliminated affirmative action in college admissions, eroded its adherence to legal precedents and curbed LGBTQ rights.

New York Times News Service