The White House has posted a fact sheet on President Biden’s big stick-it-to-the-Court plan. His big plan comprises three disparate elements:
1. No Immunity for Crimes a Former President Committed in Office: This would require a constitutional amendment to overrule Trump v. United States.
2. Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices: This would require a constitutional amendment to alter Article III, Section One of the Constitution, but why stop with Supreme Court justices?
3. Binding Code of Conduct for the Supreme Court: Here Biden “thinks” this can be effected by statute, but the statute would raise a question of constitutionality on which the the Supreme Court itself would have to rule.
Here is one fact that goes unnoted in the White House fact sheet. Under the Constitution, an amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification.
In short, the chances that the first two elements of Biden’s big plan might are nil. The third element of Biden’s big plan is window dressing for the Democrats’ assault on the Court. Taken all together, Biden’s big plan is the lamest of lame duckery.
The process for making amendments is onerous and countermajoritarian or undemocratic in the obvious sense. It reveals a knowing distrust of demagogues and tyrants. It puts up roadblocks for the likes of Joe Biden.
