Fix The Court Exec Director Weighs In On Republicans Calling Biden SCOTUS Reforms ‘Dead On Arrival’

4 months ago

On "Forbes Newsroom," Gabe Roth, Executive Director of Fix the Court, speaks to Forbes Senior Law Editor Liane Jackson about the opposition to President Biden's proposed Supreme Court reforms.

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Transcript

00:00Yeah, well, to your point, though,

00:01there are people who are in opposition.

00:03And many have said, including Leonard Leo,

00:06head of the Federalist Society, the Speaker of the House

00:11has said that this is dead on arrival.

00:16And, you know, de minimis reform in terms of ethics,

00:19as you said, like recusing from cases

00:21that you have where there might be self-dealing or not

00:25self-dealing, but your family members are involved,

00:27there's some reason that you should,

00:29some very clear reasons in recent instances

00:32as well with some of the justices

00:33that you should be recusing from the case.

00:34Sort of these de minimis reforms

00:36are having extreme opposition,

00:38extreme difficulty getting a consensus

00:41or getting pushed through.

00:42So the idea that this is DOA

00:43and this is just sort of Biden's last,

00:46like some sort of swan song to try to appease his base,

00:49what do you think of that argument?

00:52Yeah, I think, you know, two things.

00:54One, clearly there's a political angle to this, right?

00:58He sees where the party is, the party wants reform

01:02and he wants to be seen as leading that reform.

01:05Whether or not this announcement was gonna happen

01:07if he was still running for president or not,

01:09you know, that might be an open question.

01:11I think it probably would have.

01:13But he wants to be putting his stamp on the Supreme Court

01:16because during the time in office,

01:18it has become, his time in office,

01:20it has become such a major hot button issue, right?

01:22He was president when Roe versus Wade was overturned.

01:25He was obviously president 29 days ago

01:27when Trump to US came out,

01:30plenty of other major cases on, you know,

01:32Chevron deference and environmental regulations

01:35and affirmative action that came out,

01:37not probably the way the average Democrat would want

01:39and probably not the way that Joe Biden would want.

01:42So, you know, he was president when all that happened.

01:44So it would be kind of weird for him

01:46not to try to make a stamp on it.

01:47And it was a bit strange that he didn't do anything

01:51after the presidential commission on Supreme Court reform

01:53that he started in December 21,

01:55came out with a bunch of recommendations

01:57that included things like an enforceable ethical, sorry,

02:00didn't come out with recommendations.

02:02It was not allowed to come out with recommendations,

02:04but it mentioned 18-year term limits,

02:07ethics reform, recusal reform, that sort of thing.

02:09So it's strange that it sat on the shelf for that long.

02:13And so, you know, I think it's part of it,

02:14he wants to put his stamp on it.

02:16And the second thing I'll just say is, you know,

02:19just sort of taking more of a 30,000 foot view,

02:21what might be possible is following a playbook

02:26that has worked in the past with court reform.

02:28So it's that which members of Congress

02:31themselves have to follow,

02:33should be followed by federal judges and justices.

02:35And I'll just give one quick example.

02:37In 2022, Congress passed a bipartisan law

02:40that President Biden signed

02:41that required federal judges and Supreme Court justices

02:43to post details of their stock transactions online

02:46and to post their annual financial disclosures online.

02:49There was resistance from certain corners of the judiciary

02:53to not have the Supreme Court

02:54or to not have some magistrate and bankruptcy judges

02:56have to have this requirement, but they lost, thankfully.

03:00And now, I mean, I was just on the database this morning.

03:03Every single justice's disclosure is there,

03:05every single justice's financial transactions is there,

03:08in addition to thousands of others

03:09from the lower federal courts.

03:11So if we look at that as a model,

03:13there are certain things that Congress already has to do,

03:15whether it be not accept gifts over $50,

03:18report on all of their travel expenses

03:22in an itemized and comprehensive way.

03:24So I think looking at some of these maybe smaller reforms

03:27that already apply to Congress

03:28and then applying them to the Supreme Court

03:30might be strategically a way to move forward

03:33that sort of touches the issue of ethics

03:36without being seen maybe as a major overhaul,

03:38like some in the Republican Party are calling it.

Fix The Court Exec Director Weighs In On Republicans Calling Biden SCOTUS Reforms ‘Dead On Arrival’

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