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Posted: 2024-07-29T10:04:33Z | Updated: 2024-07-29T19:38:22Z

WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden has unveiled a long-awaited proposal for changes at the U.S. Supreme Court , calling on Congress to establish term limits and an enforceable ethics code for the courts nine justices. Hes also pressing lawmakers to ratify a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity.

The White House on Monday detailed the contours of Bidens court proposal, one that appears to have little chance of being approved by a closely divided Congress with just 99 days to go before Election Day .

Still, Democrats hope itll help focus voters as they consider their choices in a tight election. The likely Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris , who has sought to frame her race against Republican ex-President Donald Trump as a choice between freedom and chaos, quickly endorsed the Biden proposal. She added that the changes are needed because there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court.

The White House is looking to tap into the growing outrage among Democrats about the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, issuing opinions that overturned landmark decisions on abortion rights and federal regulatory powers that stood for decades.

Liberals also have expressed dismay over revelations about what they say are questionable relationships and decisions by some members of the conservative wing of the court that suggest their impartiality is compromised.

I have great respect for our institutions and separation of powers, Biden argues in a Washington Post op-ed published Monday. What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the publics confidence in the courts decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.

Harris in a statement said the reforms being proposed will help to restore confidence in the Court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called the proposal a dangerous gambit that would be dead on arrival in the House.

The president planned to speak about his proposal later Monday during an address at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.

Biden is calling for doing away with lifetime appointments to the court. He says Congress should pass legislation to establish a system in which the sitting president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in service on the court. He argues term limits would help ensure that court membership changes with some regularity and adds a measure of predictability to the nomination process.

He also wants Congress to pass legislation establishing a court code of ethics that would require justices 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.

Biden also is calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment reversing the Supreme Courts recent landmark immunity ruling that determined former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution.