Washington, D.C. — Today, President Biden announced his plan to reform the U.S. Supreme Court and protect the rule of law. The plan includes a constitutional amendment removing presidential immunity for criminal acts, 18-year term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices, and a binding code of ethics for the U.S. Supreme Court. A recent poll found that as many as seven in ten Americans think that the U.S. Supreme Court justices are driven by ideology. 

“Principle and precedent, not personnel, should be determining factors in the outcome of any case. Yet too often, this Supreme Court has used its illegitimately constructed majority to overturn rulings that the American people have used to order their lives or to deconstruct our system of justice. For the good of the nation this must change,” said Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States and Chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC). 

“President Biden’s proposal marks a significant step toward ensuring the Court operates as it is intended to—insulated from partisan influence and held to enforceable ethics standards—and, in the Presidential immunity case, reversing one of the most democracy threatening and truly ill conceived decisions in our nation’s history. Eighteen-year term limits for justices, and regularized  presidential appointments, are a commonsense—and popularly supported—way forward to restore Americans’ faith in the Supreme Court. These proposals will ensure justices bend less to partisan winds and special interests and move toward a fair evaluation of the law.”

Attorney General Holder has proposed similar reforms to strengthen the Supreme Court, and the reasons why they’re needed in his book, Our Unfinished March, on pages 205 to 213, including 18-year term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices and a systematic appointment process to the Court. As AG Holder notes: even Chief Justice Roberts has previously suggested 15-year terms for Supreme Court Justices so they “would not lose all touch with reality through decades of ivory tower existence.” 

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