Reining in the rogue court is a crucial goal with wide support from Americans across the political spectrum
“Better late than never” is a useful maxim in all of life and in politics as well. On Monday, Joe Biden caught the “better late than never” bug when he unveiled a series of proposals to reform the US supreme court.
Those proposals come more than two and a half years after the US president’s presidential commission on the supreme court issued its recommendations, and more than 40 years after Biden called former president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s plan to impose term limits on the court “boneheaded”.
In 2020, during his quest for the White House, Biden again distanced himself from people who were pushing for significant institutional reform at the court.
How times have changed. That was before the court overruled Roe v Wade, the ethics scandals of justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas came to light, and before the court gave the president almost blanket immunity from criminal prosecution.
Better late than never seems to be the only time US presidents get things done. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pleased that this lame duck* is trying to get things done even after giving up the presidency. But this Supreme Court has been openly corrupt for at least four years; the only thing that has changed since Biden took office is they finally went too far and pissed off everyone who held their nose and voted D last time.