Key Dems Want Biden’s SCOTUS Ethics Overhaul

Plus: JD Vance is alienating just about everyone under the sun.

Photo by Bonnie Cash/Getty Images

President Joe Biden released a new plan Monday to overhaul the Supreme Court through ethics requirements and term limits. While it is dead on arrival in the House, the proposal was met with genuine optimism among Democratic senators. Lawmakers are eager to reform the Court, which has issued a string of momentous conservative decisions amid reporting revealing just how little ethical self-policing there has been among the  justices. 

Biden’s plan calls for three things:

• A “No One is Above the Law Amendment” that would repeal the recent Supreme Court decision granting broad immunity to presidents for anything that can be classified under the heading of “official acts.”

• Term limits for Supreme Court justices: The president would appoint a new justice every two years, and each justice would serve for a single term of 18 years. 

• New conduct and ethics rules for justices that would be both “binding [and] enforceable,” and which would require them to “disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.”

Noticeably absent from this list: a proposal to expand the court beyond its nine justices, an idea many in Biden’s party favor. I caught up with a handful of senators to discuss the plan, and while for the most part they liked the proposal and its general themes, some had doubts about it, as well.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) told me, “I haven't seen it, but I believe if it has to do with ethical standards, everybody should live for the highest ethical standards, regardless of which branch of government.”

Vagueness aside, Tester’s eagerness for an enforceable ethics standard for the Supreme Court stuck out to me. The Montanan is running one of this cycle’s toughest re-election races, and he has been hesitant to advocate positions on anything that could result in a splashback of controversy. Consider that he’s one of the few remaining Senate Democrats who has yet to endorse Kamala Harris’s presidential bid.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is in no such political bind. Of the Biden proposal, he told me, “The ethics piece of it I really like,” adding:

That’s the piece that I think is the most important and mandatory. And strict ethics rules for the justices because, you know, they shouldn’t have a lower standard than the traffic court in Richmond.

Kaine did express a bit of skepticism regarding Biden’s call for term limits. His main concern has to do with the mechanics of the president appointing someone new every two years.

I'm open to the idea of a single term of that length—that would be multiple presidents. I was confused about the proposal to appoint somebody every two years, because, well, you're not going to kick people off the courts. I don't quite get that.

Sen. Ted Cruz, an in-cycle Republican and longtime proponent of term limits for Congress, told me he’s entirely opposed to the Biden court reform plan:

I am a strong supporter of term limits for members of Congress, and have introduced a constitutional amendment to create term limits for members of the House and Senate. I think Biden's proposal today is an assault on the legitimacy of the court. It's intended to undermine the court and weaken the rule of law, and it is because the Supreme Court is the one branch of government the Democrats don't control right now, and that's dangerous for anyone who cares about protecting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Biden could advocate making August 1 Ted Cruz Day and Ted Cruz would oppose it.

Cruz wasn’t lying about sponsoring a constitutional amendment that would cap senators at two six-year terms. (Perhaps if he told his colleagues the amendment would disqualify him from currently seeking a third term for himself, it would gain more traction.) But because conservatives have a rock-solid supermajority on the Court that promises to last for many years, the idea of a fixed time limit for serving on the bench is an immediate no-go. 

Cat’s out of the bag

The resurfacing of Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance’s comments condemning “childless cat ladies” in interviews, tweets, and speeches has become a headache for the Trump campaign.

Vance’s rhetoric severely hampers Republican efforts to win over women voters and young voters. It’s also antagonizing Vance’s colleagues on Capitol Hill.

I asked Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) about Vance’s comments, and he responded bluntly: “Bad idea. Bad idea.” He added:

My reaction to what Republicans ought to be for affirmatively, is, when it comes to family, we ought to say we want to help anybody who wants to start a family to have children. Do it by making children, child raising, child rearing, affordable. Make their health care affordable.

And it's really that we have an economy that doesn't reward [having children], which, by the way, is an economy created by both Republicans and Democrats in the last 30 years.

In addition, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) called Vance’s remarks “offensive to many women,” telling Politico, “If the Republican Party is trying to improve its image with women, I don’t think that this is working."

Vance’s remarks have drawn a lot of negative attention. This is hardly surprising, given how many people wish they could have kids but cannot, and the fact that Republicans in 13 states have advanced legislation that could threaten access to IVF, which currently accounts for around 1 in 50 American births. Vance’s favorability is historically low, and conservative media personalities are already daydreaming about ditching him via Doc Brown’s DeLorean. 

Young Muskets

On Monday, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) released their new slate of “Young Guns,” a designation given to emerging Republican House candidates who represent the future of the party. However, it’s not quite clear what the parameters are for being named a Young Gun, as a few of their fresh superstars are pushing 70.

Retired Judge Joe McGraw running in Illinois’ 17th district is a spry 69. Former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee will be 69 in August, former California Assemblyman Scott Baugh is 62, and former Rep. Yvette Herrell, currently vying to take back New Mexico’s 2nd district, is 60. 

The Young Guns program was started by former Reps. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Eric Cantor (R-Va.), and Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who coined the term in a co-authored book: Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders. The book has become a magnet for ridicule not only for its goofy self-importance but because the young-gunning Republicans on its cover are no longer in politics, all three of them having been run out of town by their own party.

Cantor lost his primary in 2014 despite outspending his tea party–aligned challenger Dave Brat ten to one. Ryan departed Congress after a stint as speaker of the House during a period that was defined by party infighting and, frequently, ridicule from then-President Donald Trump. McCarthy received the most abuse, suffering one legislative embarrassment after another before rebels in his party defrocked him on the House floor. He would resign from Congress entirely a few months later.

But the Young Guns program lives on, even if, like several of its inductees, it is getting a little old.