Sore loser? Biden’s Supreme Court revamp follows defeats in big cases, favorable Trump rulings

President Joe Biden on Monday announced a long-shot plan to reform the Supreme Court by imposing term limits, implementing a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court Justices and erasing the presidential immunity decision.

The Democratic president’s proposal to reform the high court has little chance of passing, but signals his party’s frustration with a string of conservative wins and favorable rulings for Donald Trump. The move also placates liberal donors who have called for reforming the court amid its conservative turn.

President Biden made the frustration with conservative victories clear in an op-ed published under his name in The Washington Post that accompanied his release of the reform proposals.

“This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one,” Biden wrote. “But the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on July 1 to grant presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do. The only limits will be those that are self-imposed by the person occupying the Oval Office.”

The court recently handed down another decision that frustrated Democrats, ruling that former President Trump had immunity from prosecution for official acts while in office. Though the court did not go so far as to say the president enjoys absolute immunity, the ruling caused significant delays in several federal cases against Trump that Biden and his campaign were using to hammer his GOP rival. Biden has since dropped out of the race and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to replace him.

One major plank of Biden’s proposed reforms is a Constitutional amendment that would erase the presidential immunity decision. This amendment would “make clear no President is above the law or immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office.”

In a speech delivered Monday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Biden took aim at the court and justified his reform proposals by outlining more “extreme opinions” handed down by the court in the last decade.

“In recent years, extreme opinions the Supreme Court has handed down, have undermined long established civil rights principles and protections,” Biden said. “2013—Supreme Court and Shelby County case gutted the Voting Rights Act, opening the floodgates to waves of restrictive voting laws that have seen states across the country pass.” He also cited the court’s decisions to overturn Roe v. Wade and “eviscerate” affirmative action.

Legal analyst and constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley said Biden’s speech made clear his efforts to reform the court stem from Democrats’ disagreement with the decisions rather than a fundamental problem with the court.

"President Biden is citing a series of cases with which he disagrees as the basis for seeking to fundamentally change the Court. The message is clear. If the Court ruled as he demanded, it would not have to be changed…” he posted on X, responding to the speech.

President Biden specifically cited the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in his op-ed calling for reforms, highlighting its centrality to Democratic efforts to remake the court.

“On top of dangerous and extreme decisions that overturn settled legal precedents—including Roe v. Wade—the court is mired in a crisis of ethics. Scandals involving several justices have caused the public to question the court’s fairness and independence, which are essential to faithfully carrying out its mission of equal justice under the law,” he added, referencing recent scrutiny on conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

Recently, the high court has handed key victories to conservatives, principal among them, overturning Roe v. Wade which restored individual states’ ability to restrict abortion access. Biden’s targeting of the court over this decision is readily apparent. In fact, he said so himself in his op-ed.

His proposal to add term limits for the body is a direct attempt to limit was he labels “extreme decisions” by reducing the ability for a single president to “radically [alter] the makeup of the court for generations to come,” as he believes Trump did with his appointment of three justices during his first term. Biden himself held his seat representing Delaware in the Senate for 36 years.

Leonard Leo, a board member of the conservative Federalist Society and opponent of Biden’s reforms, says Biden’s reform proposals are an effort to destroy an unfriendly court.

“No conservative justice has made any decision in any big case that surprised anyone, so let's stop pretending this is about undue influence. It's about Democrats destroying a court they don't agree with,” Leo said in a statement Monday.

Biden’s frustration with the more conservative Supreme Court also coincides with the efforts by liberal donors to push for Supreme Court reform and to specifically target Thomas and Alito, two of the court’s most conservative members. Both Thomas and Alito have come under scrutiny for taking gifts and traveling with wealthy friends. The two justices subsequently released financial disclosure statements showing the gifts and travel. However, the revelations spurred Democrats to call for ethics reforms to the court that were echoed by liberal donor groups that have long called for a reform of the courts.

In recent years, liberal mega-donor George Soros' Open Society Foundations donated $4.5 million to Demand Justice. That represents a marked increase from the $2.5 million it received in 2018, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

The list of Supreme Court reforms that Demand Justice supports are nearly identical to the proposal President Biden unveiled Monday, including term limits for justices and mandatory ethics rules. The group also advocates for expanding the Supreme Court to dilute “the Court’s current extreme, far-right majority,” according to its website.

Soros’ Open Society Foundations and other liberal donor groups, like Arabella Advisors, have funded or supported more advocacy organizations, directly and indirectly, pushing for the same kinds of reforms. For example, Soros and Arabella have provided millions in donations or services to the Campaign for Accountability, a liberal watchdog group that signed on to an open letter last September calling on conservative justices to recuse themselves for alleged conflicts of interest.

Arabella did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News at the time of publication.

The Arabella and Soros networks have also supported in various ways Common Cause, Common Cause, Accountable.US, and the Project on Government Oversight—all groups that have called for accountability for the Supreme Court or specific reforms, according to the Washington Examiner.

In an email responding to our request for comment received after press time, a spokesman for Arabella Advisors said it does "not fund advocacy organizations. Arabella Advisors is a philanthropic consulting business that provides back-office support services to nonprofit organizations. Arabella Advisors is not a donor or a funder."

[Update: Adds detail and comment from Arabella Advisors regarding their role in supporting the movement for judicial reform.]