Dobbs is a big, big issue and one that Harris is running on. It’s also a winning issue. Term limits and codes of ethics are a big issue, but not a winning one.
IMHO, it’s a great idea, but poor timing. It looks like a hail Mary to keep Biden in the news.
Biden has shown in the last 2 weeks that he remains a skilled politician (or has very skilled people working for him), so I agree with this. I just don’t see where the timing benefits the election or the issue. Hopefully I will be wrong.
First you have to convince them that there is a problem to fix.
Way I see this proposal:
Harris can just be like, “I agree,” and keep campaigning. Republicans can try to take that agreement as grounds to attack her, but again, Biden owns these proposals.
It looks pretty savvy to me.
I’m in agreement with @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness’s analysis (which I want to mention, was admirably accurate and succinct, the latter of which I can’t do well).
Or as others say, let’s acknowledge the problem and put it before voters, and let Trump refute it (to his detriment hopefully) and have to split his attention between Biden and Harris.
But yes, while there is some hope for the ethics rules on the SCOTUS, our system is far too broken for an amendment for probably at least a generation. Doesn’t mean it isn’t worth putting out there.
It depends on the spin (or lack of it for straight reporting).
versus
What is remarkable to me is that the President of the United States is proposing to revamp the Supreme Court and it did not lead the national news tonight. The torch has been truly passed.
I wish he would advocate expanding the court. Honestly, even before this group of, corrupt grifters, got shoved in, it was well past time to expand the court. No amendment required.
Would the term limits be retroactive or would the court only be free of Clarence Thomas after 18 years have passed?
I agree on expanding the court as well. Have lots of judges and randomize which ones will take each case to at least somewhat mitigate partisan shitbaggery. They seem busy enough as is to merit a much larger Supreme Court that deals with cases year-round.
I was wondering about that as well. Would the current justices be grandfathered in, and be allowed to serve as long as they’d like, or would they be forced to retire after a certain amount of time?
Also under this scheme, if a justice dies or retires before their term is up, would their replacement be appointed to serve out only the remainder of that justice’s term, or would they be allowed a full 18-year-term? If the latter, I can imagine that creating its own set of problems before long, such as justices retiring a year or two early just to be able to guarantee that a president of their favored party gets to appoint their successor for the next 18 years.
No, the system falls apart when the leader of the confirming body realizes he doesn’t have to fill positions nominated by a president of the opposing party. I don’t think McConnell filled a judicial position during the last year of Obama’s presidency, leaving a huge backlog to be filled once Trump was in office. And, I doubt that Trump (or any president, really) took any real interest in the judicial nominations other than an aid handing him a list of openings and a list of Heritage-approved nominees. Rank-and-file senators like Tuberville, Hawley, and Vance have nothing to do with that.
First world countries don’t have politicians sitting as judges, so the question never arises. If you step back a level, in first world countries politicians make laws, so judges don’t have to and indeed cannot. Of course, that could never work in the USA.
On the general topic, I assume Mr Biden is raising this now, so that there is a high profile public debate about how the Republicans are destroying your institutions and refusing to let them be fixed, so that in late January President Harris can pragmatically appoint eight new justices with plausible conviction that it is the only way to make America great again.
I agree that attacking the Court is both good for the country and politically wise.
That’s just a subset of my general statement that the Court has become a discreditable partisan body because the supposed senior deliberative body that is supposed to confirm justices is comprised of morons and partisan extremists. I should have included McConnell in the list of examples.
Right, exactly. Which is why Biden is saying this now.
Raising the prominence of this concern during an election when the best way to implement changes is for their to be stronger Democratic representation in both chambers of Congress seems to me to be a great way for Joe Biden to spend his remaining time in office.
For too long, citizens have ignored the outsized impact the SCOTUS can have on their lives. I think they might be listening now. I’m glad Biden is placing his emphasis on the issue.
(Emphasis mine.)
This statement demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the process to make changes to the Justices sitting on the SCOTUS.
President Harris can’t “appoint” eight new justices for any reason.
And it’s also consistent with his messaging after the SCOTUS ruled on presidential immunity. He did not mince words about how reckless and dangerous that ruling was.
I don’t think that’s exactly right (specifically points 1 and 5).
In theory, a Democratically-controlled House and Senate could change rules to allow a simple majority vote on legislation about the number of SC justices, then increase the number to 13 (for example), allowing Harris to nominate an additional 4 justices immediately, creating a 7-6 Democratically-nominated majority. Since Republicans changed the rules in 2017, only a simple majority in the Senate is required for cloture and for the subsequent vote.
Now, in practice, Republicans would scream blue murder if the rules were changed in that way. But in theory it’s possible.
Thank you for making this distinction/correction. As you point out, the likelihood is extremely slim.
ETA: Apologies to @Atamasama. I started out responding to him and then ended up responding to LHOD!
It’s okay, I appreciate the attention. 
That is certainly the most expedient way of getting reform, and may be what is required, but I don’t think that Biden should be going there just yet. Stacking the court sounds like partisan cheating in a way that ethics and term limits do not. So politically it is much better for him to support the latter two options rather than the first.
In any case there is no way that anything to be done until the Dems can take back congress so at this time politics is the only point. If we win big in November and it becomes clear that the Supreme Court is running off the rails and there is no possibility of and Amendment, then Harris can say that she is reluctantly forced to use the more expedient alternative.
Ethics rules seem like a no-brainer, right? Ah, but not in Conservativeland, where opponents feel that ethics rules will be applied selectively only to conservative justices.
The conservative perspective of corruption is becoming pretty baked in.