I subscribe to Prof. Heather’s “Letters” site. Sometimes I will comment there in my usual style of discussion and providing information. Yesterday’s commentary is about SCOTUS and its drift away from neutrality in making its ever-lasting decisions. This is not about whether SCOTUS is a conservative or liberal court. Many of the previous courts have been conservative in their decisions. This SCOTUS has taken a stance of declaring some are immune to any law. Ethical behavior by the court is being called into question also. Finally, should a Justice retire after a period of time? Read on and see what Prof. Heather’s position is. July 29, 2024 by Prof. Heather Cox-Richardson Letters from an American One of the advantages of refusing the
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I subscribe to Prof. Heather’s “Letters” site. Sometimes I will comment there in my usual style of discussion and providing information. Yesterday’s commentary is about SCOTUS and its drift away from neutrality in making its ever-lasting decisions. This is not about whether SCOTUS is a conservative or liberal court. Many of the previous courts have been conservative in their decisions. This SCOTUS has taken a stance of declaring some are immune to any law. Ethical behavior by the court is being called into question also. Finally, should a Justice retire after a period of time?
Read on and see what Prof. Heather’s position is.
July 29, 2024
by Prof. Heather Cox-Richardson
One of the advantages of refusing the Democratic nomination for president is that his decision to do that has left President Joe Biden in the position of being above the political fray and being able to act for the good of the whole country.
Today, Biden noted that the American people have lost faith in the Supreme Court. When he was in office, Trump stacked the court with three extremists who have worked with extremist justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to overturn longstanding legal precedents that protect civil rights and move the country toward a theocracy overseen by a dictator. A statement from the White House today recounted how the Supreme 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.” It also noted that “recent ethics scandals involving some Justices have caused the public to question the fairness and independence that are essential for the Court to faithfully carry out its mission to deliver justice for all Americans.”
Today, Biden called for three major changes to restore trust and accountability.
He called for a constitutional amendment to make clear that no president is above the law or immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office. This is a direct response to the Supreme Court’s decision of July 1, 2024, in Donald J. Trump v. United States that a president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed in actions that fall under a president’s “official duties.”
The White House wrote that “President Biden shares the Founders’ belief that the President’s power is limited—not absolute—and must ultimately reside with the people.” The “No One Is Above the Law Amendment will state that the Constitution does not confer any immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction, or sentencing by virtue of previously serving as President.”
Biden also called for eighteen-year term limits for Supreme Court justices. Noting that Congress approved term limits for the presidency, Biden pointed out that “[t]he United States is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court Justices.” “Term limits would help ensure that the Court’s membership changes with some regularity; make timing for Court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary; and reduce the chance that any single Presidency imposes undue influence for generations to come,” the White House wrote.
The administration is reacting, in part, to the fact that Trump, with the help of then–Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), denied Democratic president Barack Obama the right to appoint a Supreme Court justice, holding it for Trump, and then, after Trump had appointed a second justice, rushed through a third Trump appointee at the very end of his term, enabling him to appoint three hard-right justices who will be able to skew the court’s decisions for decades.
With those justices on the court, it has handed down a series of nakedly partisan decisions that represent the goals of the extremist Republican Party rather than the majority of Americans. They have overturned a ban on bump stocks for semiautomatic rifles, made partisan and racial gerrymandering easier, undercut business regulation, ceased to recognize the constitutional right to abortion, and, stunningly, ruled that a president has significant immunity from prosecution for committing crimes while in office.
Biden also called for Congress to “pass binding, enforceable conduct and ethics rules that 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. Supreme Court Justices should not be exempt from the enforceable code of conduct that applies to every other federal judge.”
This, too, reflects the problems of the modern court, where several justices, especially Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito, have accepted large gifts from those with business before the court and have refused to recuse themselves from those cases. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced articles of impeachment against Thomas and Alito on July 10, and the measures currently have 19 co-sponsors.
As Ankush Khardori noted in Politico today, before Trump’s three justices took their seats, public approval of the court stood at 58%. After its decision to give presidents immunity, that approval fell to a record low of just 38%. More than 75% of Americans, including a large majority of Republicans, support eighteen-year term limits for justices.
In an op-ed in the Washington Post today, Biden wrote: “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 noted that as a senator he served as chair and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, and has “overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today.” Noting that the current system makes it possible for a single president to radically alter the makeup of the court for generations to come, he warned:
“What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.”
“We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power. The nation 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.”
Ian Millhiser of Vox points out that these reforms would currently be almost impossible to pass, but Biden’s embrace of them is a powerful political statement for the Democrats to carry into the 2024 election. Until now, Biden has lagged behind popular opinion on the issue of court reform. Now, though, the sitting president is rejecting the power the extremist modern-day Supreme Court conveyed on presidents and reinforcing the rule of law.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, immediately endorsed Biden’s proposals, meaning that she is willing to be bound by our historic understanding that presidents are not above the law. In contrast, Leonard Leo, who has been central to the stacking of the court and who has called for “flood[ing] the zone with cases that challenge misuse of the Constitution by the administrative state and by Congress,” called the plan “a campaign to destroy a court that they disagree with.” House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called it “dead on arrival in the House.”
For his part, Biden seemed more optimistic than Millhiser that his reforms could pass. When a reporter asked him how he would get court reform passed, he answered: “You’ve asked me that—on everything I’ve ever passed you’ve asked me that. We’re going to figure a way.”
Today, additional assistance provided to International Brotherhood of Teamsters pension plans thanks to the American Rescue Plan saved the pensions of an additional 70,000 New England Teamsters. This brings the total protected to 600,000. No Republicans voted for the American Rescue Plan, and Teamsters president Sean O’Brien stood next to Biden when he put the first protections into place. After O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention earlier this month, Vice President at large John Palmer announced he is challenging O’Brien for the leadership.
Momentum behind Vice President Harris continues to build. Today John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, the third-largest city in Arizona, wrote an op-ed in the Arizona Republic explaining why “as a Republican mayor, I support Kamala Harris over Trump.” He blamed Trump for abandoning cities while Biden and Harris have made historic investments in them and brought thousands of new jobs to Arizona. Giles urged his fellow Republicans to reject MAGA Republicans and turn back to the principles of an older Republican Party. “Our party used to stand for the belief that every Arizonan, no matter their background or circumstances, should have the freedom, opportunity and security to live out their American Dream,” he wrote.
But today’s Republicans are political extremists who are trying to disrupt elections and who killed immigration reform. “Trump poses a serious threat to our nation,” he wrote. “We can’t have a felon representing us on the national stage, let alone one who would threaten to abandon NATO and ruin our standing abroad.”
“Arizona Republicans like me can emulate Sen. John McCain’s motto of ‘Country First’ and beat back Trump and his threat to democracy,” Giles wrote. “Kamala Harris is the competent, just and fair leader our country deserves.”
In the New York Times, Peter Wehner, who served in the administrations of Republican presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush echoed Giles’s autopsy for his party but, in an important shift, examined its recent changes through a lens of the political theories of autocracy. He concluded: “It’s hard and haunting to know that the political party to which I devoted a significant part of my life has become the greatest political threat to the country I love.”
More than 40 former officials from the Department of Justice agree. On July 25 they wrote an open letter endorsing Harris and warning that “Trump presents a grave risk to our country, our global alliances and the future of democracy. As president, he “regularly ignored the rule of law.” In contrast, as the elected attorney general of California, Harris “oversaw the largest state justice department in the country. She forged strong relationships with law enforcement to keep people safe, fought for American consumers and fought against those preying on the American people…. The stakes could not be higher.”
Tonight, White Dudes for Harris held an online fundraiser. Actor Jeff Bridges, who played The Dude in the 1998 film The Big Lebowski, recounted Harris’s popular policies on the call. “I’m white, I’m a dude, and I’m for Harris,” he said. “A woman president, man, how exciting!” Minnesota governor Tim Walz added: “How often in 100 days do you get to change the trajectory of the world? How often in 100 days do you get to do something that’s going to impact generations to come? And how often in the world do you make that b*st*rd wake up afterwards and know that a Black woman kicked his a** and sent him on the road?”
The Trump-Vance ticket continues to stumble. In the Washington Post today, Jennifer Rubin noted that the Republicans appear to have gone out of their way to pick a presidential ticket that would offend women. Trump is, she pointed out, “an adjudicated rapist” who bragged about sexual assault, demeans and insults women, “mused about punishing women for having an abortion,” and boasts that he was behind the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Vance wants to ban abortion in all cases, wants the federal government to stop women from traveling across state lines to obtain abortion care, says childless women don’t have a stake in the country’s future, and has implied that women should stay in abusive marriages.
The Republicans embrace the ideas of right-wing groups whose members want to roll back women’s rights; their call for a “revival of faith, family, and fertility” is a tenet of fascism. “When Harris declares ‘We’re not going back,’” Rubin notes, “the message has particular resonance among women.”
Finally, the world is watching events in Venezuela, where President Nicolás Maduro has claimed victory despite exit polls that showed him losing to opposition candidate Edmundo González by more than 30 points. CNN’s Jim Sciutto commented: “Don’t underestimate the loss of U.S. soft power in moments like this after a U.S. president—and current candidate for president—attempted to overturn an election here.”