Can Joe Biden End Presidential Immunity And Change SCOTUS?

This episode explores President Joe Biden's proposals for major reforms to the U.S. Supreme Court and presidential powers, including ending immunity for former presidents and imposing term limits on Supreme Court justices.

1. President Biden proposes constitutional changes to end presidential immunity and impose Supreme Court term limits.
2. These reforms are unlikely to be implemented soon due to political realities and structural barriers.
3. Biden's proposals reflect a significant ideological shift towards progressive values within the Democratic Party.
4. The episode discusses the potential long-term impact of these reforms on the balance of power in the U.S. government.
5. The hosts explore the public's decreasing trust in the Supreme Court and the potential for these reforms to align the Court more closely with contemporary values.

1: Introduction

Overview of the episode's focus on Biden's proposed reforms to the Supreme Court and presidential powers. Key topics include constitutional amendments and term limits. Sarah McCammon: "Today on the show, President Biden has called for major reforms."

2: Biden's Evolution

Discussion on Joe Biden's ideological evolution from a centrist Democrat to a progressive leader advocating for judicial reform. Susan Davis: "Joe Biden has changed, and he has been a very progressive president."

3: Public Opinion and Reform

Analysis of public opinion towards the Supreme Court and how it influences political strategies for reform. Mara Liasson: "18 year term limits for the Supreme Court is very, very popular."

4: Political Challenges

Exploration of the political and legislative challenges in implementing such significant reforms. Susan Davis: "If you want to change big, bold change towards a branch of government, has to happen with bipartisan support."

1. Stay informed about proposed changes to government institutions and how they impact governance.
2. Engage in discussions about judicial reform and its implications for democracy.
3. Evaluate the balance of power in government and consider the role of checks and balances.
4. Participate in civic activities that support transparency and accountability in government.
5. Advocate for reforms that align governmental institutions with current societal values.

President Biden's plan to fix the Supreme Court is going nowhere quickly, but the ideas he is proposing seem likely to stick around for awhile.

This episode: national political correspondent Sarah McCammon, political correspondent Susan Davis, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.

The podcast is produced by Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our intern is Bria Suggs. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

People

Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell

Content Warnings:

None

Robert Smith
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Hi, this is Tegan and Rosalie from Denver, Colorado. But right now we're in Des Moines, Iowa, on day eight of a ten day road trip with our 16 month old. We just got done visiting friends in Madison, family in Milwaukee, and some other friends in Chicago, and we're on the final leg home.

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This podcast was recorded at 11:35 a.m. eastern time on Wednesday, July 31, 2024.

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No.

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Okay, here's the show.

Sarah McCammon
Brave parents there.

Susan Davis
That sounds both adorable and stressful because that is a tough age for a long road trip.

Sarah McCammon
Extremely. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign.

Susan Davis
I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

Mara Liasson
And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.

Sarah McCammon
Today on the show, President Biden has called for major reforms to the US Supreme Court and to the powers of the presidency. Among those, a constitutional amendment that makes clear there's no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office, term limits for the court, where the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court, and a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court. Now, safe to say these changes are not coming anytime soon for a bunch of reasons we may talk about. But sue, what do you make of this pitch from President Biden?

Susan Davis
You know, I think part of it is part of the fascinating evolution of Joe Biden as someone who was a middle of the road, centrist Democrat to somebody who has really captured the enthusiasm and the ideology of a lot of the progressive left. Changing the Supreme Court is not necessarily a new idea. This is something that the left of the Democratic Party, particularly in recent years as the court has shifted to the right and has made some controversial decisions, that the calls for judicial reform have gotten louder and louder. The Joe Biden of 20 years ago probably never would have been a champion of these changes. He's a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Joe Biden has changed, and he has been a very progressive president and this seems like a further continuation of that. And you're right, it's not going anywhere anytime soon. It might not go anywhere ever. But I think that this is something he can do right now. Like, he's now a lame duck president, right? He's not, he's not running for reelection now. And I think he is trying to sort of carve out this ideological space for what the Democratic Party stands for. So it's profound in the politics of it. I'm not sure it's profound in the policy because I don't think it's something that could be implemented maybe ever.

Mara Liasson
Joe Biden is definitely a traditionalist. He's one of the last ones. And he even talked about this when he announced these reforms. He was at the LBJ library commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights act, which LBJ signed in 1964. He talked about how he was reticent to propose these kinds of big changes for the court, but that he had to do it because this Supreme Court is not normal. And it's gone so far out of the mainstream to change the balance of power between the branches of government that this is necessary.

Joe Biden
I have great respect for our institutions and the separation of powers laid out in our constitution, but what's happening now is not consistent with that doctrine of separation of powers.

Extremism is undermining the public confidence in the court's decisions.

Sarah McCammon
But these are reforms that a lot of people, particularly on the left, have been working toward for a long time. And, I mean, might they have some future after this election, if not right away?

Susan Davis
Look, I think a lot of this benefits from timing in that polling, especially in recent years, shows that the Supreme Court has reached, not always historical, but at some points historical lows. A majority of Americans disapprove of the court now then approve. According to Gallup polling, this is kind of the only thing you could do, structural, major reforms to a branch of government when the public doesn't have a high level of trust in it. So I think that Biden is seizing on a political reality. If the Supreme Court was really popular right now, this would seem like a really stupid thing to offer to the public, broadly speaking. And Morris thought a lot more about term limits on the court. But term limits are popular if you actually. The idea of term limits in general. Yeah. If you ask Americans, do you think members of Congress should be term limited? So it doesn't surprise me that there could be an easy sort of popular support for something like that. I think it's the process by which you have to change these institutions, which I think it's a good thing that it's pretty hard to change branches of government without big political fights. So that's why I say the timing of it is not anytime soon and maybe not in our lifetimes. But I do think that Joe Biden capturing an anger on the left, but certainly, I think more broader than the left, that this court is out of step with the country, especially when it comes to issues like abortion or like issues of whether a former president can be prosecuted for crimes.

Mara Liasson
Yes, and sue is right. 18 year term limits for the Supreme Court is very, very popular. And what it would do is it would guarantee, once you have the transition period, it would guarantee that every president would get two nominations to the Supreme Court. And that's something that's very popular, much more popular than the other reform that used to be talked about on left, which was packing the court, expanding the court. But that is something, putting term limits on justices or even expanding the court. It can be done by statute. It's been done before. There was a time when we had ten Supreme Court justices. So I think that this is not just political, but I think the president is laying down a marker for what the democratic party wants to see in Supreme Court reform. And as sue said, it might take decades and decades to get it done. But on the other hand, look how long it took the right to overturn Roe. 50 years.

Sarah McCammon
And let's talk about that quickly. Why would it be so hard to get this done?

Susan Davis
If you look at republican response to this from people like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who's played a big role in shaping the court, and other Republicans, like, the reaction to this was extreme rejection, saying, basically, Democrats are trying to change the court just because they don't like the political reality of its six three conservative leaning right now. And I do think there is an argument to be made that if you want to change big, big, bold change towards a branch of government, has to happen with bipartisan support. And the system is designed to not be able to do these things unless you have bipartisan support. So, for instance, even if you believe it can just happen by statute, you would need at least a 60 vote support in the Senate to get that through, which a proposal like this is not gonna get that hard to get.

Mara Liasson
Unless you get rid of the filibuster.

Susan Davis
Sure. But that's a whole other conversation. Under the current rules of the game, you can't do it unless you have a super majority of support in Congress. And if you do it by constitutional amendment, you need super majorities in both the House and Senate to support it, and then three quarters of the states to ratify it.

What anybody? Tell me something that could unite this country to get that level of support for amending the constitution on any issue, certainly not something on divisive as this.

Mara Liasson
You just said the system is set up to demand bipartisan buy in for legislation. That's right. But our politics are set up right now to mitigate against that. So the founders wanted rules and institutions that would force both sides to compromise, but right now, our politics is set up. That compromise is often a dirty word. And I think that I happen to be a minority rule obsessive. But when you think about the Supreme Court, six, three, five of the six conservative judges were nominated, appointed by presidents who had lost the popular vote. The senate that confirms Supreme Court justices is a minoritarian institution. And there is a sense in the country, and this could take many, many years to come to fruition, that the system is out of whack, that we have minority rule. When you look at the Supreme Court decisions in the last couple of years and how they stack up against public opinion, majority public opinion is against almost every single one of them.

I'm not saying that the Supreme Court should be solely reflective of public opinion, but they are not elected.

And in this case, most of them were put on the court by presidents who had lost the popular vote.

Sarah McCammon
And I think it's worth pointing out that part of the reason that Republicans under President Trump were able to stack the court in the way that they have is because then Majority Leader Mitch McConnell worked within the system as it was, sort of pushed the bounds of the system.

Mara Liasson
You could say right by the constitutional.

Sarah McCammon
Hardball, right by refusing to hold confirmation hearings for President Obama's nominee. And so. And that sort of ledbegan, the chain of events that led to where we are now, which I think has bred some frustration on the left about the way the system is set up.

Mara Liasson
And can you, can you just do a thought experiment here, talking about McConnell and what he did to hold that seat open for ten months?

Can you imagine a time ever again when we will have a president of one party and a Senate controlled by the other party, where there is a vote on a Supreme Court nominee? I don't think that will ever happen again, even if the Supreme Court gets down to five justices.

Susan Davis
I think that's a good point. And I think it's a good reminder that so much of the way stuff changes is not because our laws change, but it's because our norms change. Right. Like Mitch McConnell changed what's acceptable and what you can do.

Mara Liasson
It's hard work within the rules. But he stretched them as far as they could possibly go.

Susan Davis
Yeah. And I would also say, to your point, Sarah, about how Republicans sort of changed that system. Remember, Democrats planted the seeds. It was Democrats that initially changed the rules on how you could get things through the confirmation process in the Senate. And Republicans took that norm and expanded it to include Supreme Court justices and then took that norm and expanded it to how long you had to wait to confirm them. And I just say that in this context of judicial reform is sometimes it's like, be careful what you wish for, where democrats go out on the limb to say, look, this is what we think should happen. Hey, maybe this does happen one day, but maybe it's when republicans have the power and they say, this court's so liberal, we need to change it. Right?

Sarah McCammon
Like change the rules. The rules have changed.

Mara Liasson
I think both sides were ready to start breaking the rules. I don't, I don't think Mitch McConnell would have played by the rules if Democrats had not done that.

Sarah McCammon
All right, well, we're going to take a quick break. And please, if you're not already following the show, wherever you get your podcasts, this is a great time to do it. We'll be right back.

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Sarah McCammon
And were back. This was part of what President Biden promised for the remainder of his term in his address when he announced he was stepping down from seeking the presidency for another term. Given what we made of the long odds here for court reform, what else do you think Biden will be working on these last few months of his presidency?

Mara Liasson
Well, certainly foreign policy, thats the presidents purview. And I think hell be working on trying to get a peace agreement in the Middle east, continuing to arm Ukraine and shore up Taiwan, too.

Susan Davis
I mean, domestically, he's a lame duck. He's not running for reelection. There is no sort of must pass cliffs in Congress in the remainder of the year. He's going to probably have to sign into law stopgap resolution, keeping the government funded woo. You know, that's not going to be a big deal. So I think that what's going to be curious to see for the next six months as he's still president is how he uses to spend his time. Like, again, I think this judicial thing is quite interesting. And he's trying to provoke, obviously, a political response and he's trying to excite democratic voters in this election, trying to keep the court front and center in a lot of democratic voters minds. But what is Joe Biden going to be able to get done of his own agenda? Probably very little. I did also think it was interesting, like this contrast we're gonna have between this lame, dark president and his vice president running where Kamala Harris is supportive, said she supported all these judicial recommendations. But there's a little bit of a like who's driving the car here now thing.

And is he trying to support her by putting out these kind of policy changes or is it sort of, he's still trying to remind people, hey, there's still a president here, right?

Sarah McCammon
He's still the president, but he's still the president. But he's obviously mindful of the politics and the high stakes for this election and how close this election this campaign seems to be. So, I mean, still, it's remarkable.

Biden, as we've said, has sort of been seen throughout his career as a traditionalist, as a moderate, and yet some of his policy achievements really seem to be designed to please the party base.

What stands out to both of you? What do you think he'll be remembered for?

Mara Liasson
Infrastructure, manufacturing, renaissance, which I can guarantee you future republican presidents will take credit for because those things take a long time to come to fruition. And climate. Climate. He is investing tremendous amounts of money.

Susan Davis
And lowering drug prices and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. I think that was a huge goal for Democrats for a long time. I mean, to me, the story of Joe Biden is how this moderate from Delaware, who had been on the side of the banks for most of his career as representing the state of Delaware, became a sort of progressive hero. Even in the weeks when it was unclear if he was going to stay in the race or get out of the race. To me, it was really notable that the voices that were so aggressively trying to keep him as their nominee were people like Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York and Ilhan Omar, really the most standout progressive voices in the party because they would say, like, he is delivered for progressives in a way that no other democratic president has in our lifetimes. So he has a odd sort of credibility and adoration from a wing of the party that I think he probably detested for a large part of his own political career. I guess to me it's always just a lesson that politicians can still surprise you, like, the president that Joe Biden was is probably not the president that a lot of people were expecting him to be.

Sarah McCammon
All right. Let's leave it there for today. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign.

Susan Davis
I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

Mara Liasson
And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.

Sarah McCammon
Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.

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