Biden's SCOTUS fantasies

President Biden rolled out some proposed reforms of the U.S. Supreme Court the other day. His plan would limit each justice's term to 18 years, giving each President two appointments per term in the White House. There'd also be an enforceable code of ethics for the justices, and their recent decision giving the President broad immunity from criminal prosecution would be scaled way back.

Of course, none of this has a snowball's chance in hell of happening any time soon. The Presidential immunity thing would take a constitutional amendment, and although the White House is suggesting otherwise, the term limits for the justices may well require that the Constitution be amended as well. And even if some of the changes, like the ethics code, could be made by Congress, the Boebert-Greene House of Representatives will be having none of it.

So why is Biden putting this proposal out there for theoretical discussion? It's to keep people talking over the summer about all that's gone wrong with the Supreme Court over the last several years. And it's an important reminder to the public that if they put Trump back in office, the problems are not going to be solved for decades.

Biden's right to be doing that. The Court has gone utterly rogue. Even leaving aside the merits (or lack thereof) of their recent blockbuster decisions, the justices have squandered the institutional respect that the Court once drew. Two of the justices are shamelessly sitting in seats stolen by Mitch McConnell. A third is on the take and married to a notorious insurrectionist. A fourth is a fanatical Catholic with a spouse who talks and acts at times like a New Jersey mobster. A fifth was shown to be unfit for the High Court but was installed there anyway after his old boss, the father of the Trump family banker, essentially assigned him his position on the Court. And the chief justice? He may have seemed moderate for a moment or two, but no, he's actually full-blown MAGA, not to mention grabbing power by the bucketfuls for the judicial branch.

So yes, there are problems, and the more they get discussed, the better. One can only hope that someday, the stars will align so that Biden's changes, or something like them, can actually be made.