Proposed Supreme Court Overhaul.
To: Miriam Flisser.
From: Michael Kusi.
Topic: President Biden’s Proposed Supreme Court Overhaul.
Date: 7/29/24
The Biden administration on Monday released a a plan for sweeping reforms of the U.S. Supreme Court, underscoring the issue as a priority in the president's final months in office. They stated that there was a crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court, and therefore reforms were necessary. [1]The Democrats believe that this reform is necessary in part because President Trump appointed 3 conservative justices to the Supreme Court during his tenure, while President Obama was only able to appoint 2 liberal justices and President Biden was only able to appoint 1 liberal justice.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Synopsis.
The troubles with the proposed Supreme Court reforms are manifold. Firstly, it does not have corresponding Executive and Legislative Branch reforms, and so it reeks of Democratic partisan bias. Democrats would like the overall American populace to think that their problem with the Supreme Court is everyone’s problem. Conservatives have not been complaining about the Supreme Court, so the antagonism towards the Supreme Court is one-sided. The Judicial Branch should not be the only branch that is reformed when there are problems with legislative and executive overreach. Senator Bob Menendez had to resign because he was convicted of a felony, and no Democrat believes that this conviction requires Congress to be reformed. President Biden had to resign from running because of his displayed cognitive issues, and no Democrat is clamoring for greater transparency within the executive branch. For one branch to be totally in charge of ethics oversight over another branch would be a violation of the separation of powers and unconstitutional. There is already impeachment in terms of oversight for Supreme Court justices by Congress and no Supreme Court justice has recently been impeached. The president has oversight over Supreme Court justices because he has to pick Supreme Court justices who then have to have the advice and consent of the Senate. We have had 3 impeachments of Presidents in the past 30 years, but no Democrat is using that as reason for additional presidential oversight.
Not coincidentally, the Judicial branch is the branch where the Democrats have the least power so the Democratic powers seek to exert their authority. When the Democrats had control of the Supreme Court in the 40s through the early 70s, there was no talk of reforming the Supreme Court. It was only in the 30s when there was a conservative majority and Roosevelt sought to pack the Supreme Court. However, he failed miserably and had to wait until there were vacancies in order to appoint Supreme Court justices.
When the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v Wade decision in 1973, there was no talk of reforming the Supreme Court. There were only murmurs of reforming the Supreme Court when the Democrats lost control of the Supreme Court and they realized that they could not win enough presidential elections to regain control. These murmurs intensified with the Dobbs decision which overturned Roe v Wade. There cannot be this facilitation of proposals to reform the Supreme Court simply because the Supreme Court has passed decisions that the Democrats do not like. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land, it is not a super-legislature to pass the Democratic agenda.