President Biden is finalizing plans to endorse major changes to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks, including proposals for legislation to establish term limits for the justices and an enforceable ethics code, according to two people briefed on the plans.

He is also weighing whether to call for a constitutional amendment to eliminate broad immunity for presidents and other constitutional officeholders, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

The announcement would mark a major shift for Biden, a former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has long resisted calls to reform the high court. The potential changes come in response to growing outrage among his supporters about recent ethics scandals surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas and decisions by the new court majority that have changed legal precedent on issues including abortion and federal regulatory powers.

  • morbidcactus@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    It’s kinda wild to me the the supreme court of Canada has the same number of justices as you guys, and we’re a tenth of your size. We have a mandatory 75 retirement age and each region is given a block of justices, 3 for Quebec because they use civil not common law and then the rest are divided kinda sorta by population, convention has 3 from Ontario, 2 for the west (typically 1 BC, 1 for the prairies which rotates) and 1 for the Atlantic. It’s not perfect but we don’t seem to have the same issues as y’all do, during the Harper years for example a lot of the Tory policies got struck down by judges he appointed.

    The one that made sense at a minimum for you was to have a justice from each circuit, the court should totally represent each region.