President Joe Biden is proposing term limits and an enforceable ethics code for Justices of the United States Supreme Court. (The SCOTUS, under recent public pressure after revelations about ethically questionable gifts from billionaires to Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia, released its own ethics guidelines, but those guidelines are designed to keep the Court self-policed.)
Biden wrote in a Washington Post op-ed: “We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power. We can and must restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy.”
On Fox News Sunday, one of the three Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsuch, waved a caution flag at Biden’s SCOTUS overhaul plan, which Speaker Mike Johnson has called “dead on arrival” in the House.
When asked “how does the court feel about potential changes” such as the proposed term limits and ethics codes, Gorsuch replied that he was “not going to get into what is now a political issue during a presidential election year.”
Or what? https://t.co/DAzGZf5TO6
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 4, 2024
Gorsuch then added what he called “one thought” — addressing the importance of an independent judiciary, which in his view should remain free from checks and balances by other branches of government that an enforceable ethics code would present.
The Court’s independence, Gorsuch said, “means when you’re unpopular, you can get a fair hearing under the law and under the Constitution. If you’re in the majority, you don’t need judges and juror to hear you and protect your rights. You’re popular. It’s there for the moments when the spotlight’s on you, when the government’s coming after you.”
[NOTE: Gorsuch’s portrayal of the government as the enemy of its citizens — “coming after you” — echoes the political language of the current GOP presidential campaign.]
Gorsuch added, “Don’t you want a furiously independent judge, and a jury of your peers, to make those decisions? Isn’t that your right as an American?” He added, “And so I just say, be careful.”
More than one commenter characterized Gorsuch’s warning as menacing, writing “sounds like a threat.” Former Naval Academy political science professor Tom Nichols, now a writer for The Atlantic, gave a similar response to Gorsuch’s warning, “Or what?”