Troubling

That Joe Biden has been in public life for 50 years is troubling enough. Now he is demanding term limits for Supreme Court Justices.

As a Senator in 1987, he helped to defeat the superbly qualified Robert Bork for the Court because Bork endorsed judicial originalism. But the originalists have prevailed in the long run and now have great influence on the Court. This is what infuriates him and his fellow Democrats. So they are now willing to destroy the Court to supposedly save it.

If you think “destroy” is too strong a word, read on, according to the WSJ:

Mr. Biden is proposing to subject the Court to an ethics regime “enforceable” by someone other than the Court itself. His conceit is that this merely means the Justices would have to abide by the Code of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

An Orchestrated Campaign 

Never mind that Justices already have a code of conduct they enforce that is nearly the same as that judicial code. The difference, explains the WSJ, is the demand for outside enforcement. “Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee want lower-court judges to investigate charges of ethics violations and then rule on the Justices’ behavior.”

This is an invitation for partisans to besiege the Court with complaints, however trivial. If you want to know how that would go, consider that last month the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals stopped accepting duplicative complaints about Judge Aileen Cannon, who is sitting on the Donald Trump documents case. The circuit court received more than 1,000 complaints in a week as part of what it called an “orchestrated campaign.”

Further Undermining the Court’s Decisions 

Claiming that this invitation to besiege the Court with complaints, however trivial, Joe Biden instead would leave the public with the impression of routine corruption.

Joe Biden’s False Claims

For example, Justice Thomas failed to disclose that he flew on a friend’s private aircraft before the Judicial Conference changed its rules to require that judges disclose such flights.

(Justice Thomas) violated no judicial rules. No one has come up with any evidence that the Court’s rulings, or any Justice, has been influenced by gifts or other outside influence.

Joe Biden and Democrats really seem concerned about ethics in government. To that end, why not impose a total ban on Congress of all gifts, trips to conferences at fancy resorts, speaking fees, or anything else that provides even the appearance of a conflict of interest?

But they won’t because the Members enjoy those perks and their anger at the Court has nothing to do with ethics. They are using ethics as a political ruse to gain more influence over the Court and its decisions.

Forcibly Retire Justices

Adam White, who served on Mr. Biden’s judicial commission in 2021, makes the useful point that term limits would tie Supreme Court vacancies and appointments even more to presidential elections. He says this would further erode the appearance of judicial independence and make “the Court a spoil not just of politics, but of presidential politics exclusively.”