Justice Gorsuch Warns Biden to ‘Be Careful’ with Supreme Court Reforms

 

Justice Neil Gorsuch is pushing back against President Joe Biden’s recent proposals to restructure the Supreme Court.

“I just say: Be careful,” Gorsuch warned in an interview that aired on “Fox News Sunday.”

Less than a week after Biden announced he was reversing course and supporting 18-year term limits for justices and legislation to create a binding ethics code for the high court, the first of President Donald Trump’s three Supreme Court appointees encouraged Americans to think long and hard before taking steps that might undermine the independence of the judicial system.

“The independent judiciary … What does it mean to you as an American?” Gorsuch asked about Biden’s new plan during an interview linked to a new book Gorsuch is releasing this week. “It means that when you’re unpopular, you can get a fair hearing.”

“If you’re in the majority, you don’t need judges and juries, to hear you, to protect your rights, if you’re popular,” Gorsuch continued. “It’s there for the moments when the spotlight’s on you — when the government’s coming after you. And don’t you want a ferociously independent judge and a jury of your peers to make those decisions?”

Gorsuch did not comment directly on the specifics of Biden’s plan and was not asked during the aired portion of the interview about some of the events that the president cited as triggering his about-face on structural changes to the high court. They include the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning the federal constitutional right to abortion, the ruling last month granting presidents some degree of immunity from prosecution for official acts and the ethics controversies that have enveloped Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

In the Fox interview, Gorsuch prefaced his tribute to judicial independence with a caveat insisting that he was not injecting himself into the presidential campaign or weighing in on an issue now the subject of political debate.

“I’m not going to get into what is now a political issue during a presidential election year,” he said. “I don’t think that would be helpful.”

In an interview with New York Times columnist David French published Sunday, Gorsuch also demurred when asked directly about the notion of an ethics code that would be enforced by someone other than the justices themselves.

Justice Elena Kagan, appearing at a judicial conference in California last month, said she supports the idea of some kind of enforcement mechanism and views its absence as a flaw in the court’s current ethics policy.

However, Gorsuch suggested it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to address his colleague’s suggestion because Biden had since weighed in publicly on the issue and the subject was now being “intensely discussed by the political branches.”

Gorsuch did offer one quip to the Times when asked about the notion of limiting justices to 18-year terms: “I look forward to a few years of fly fishing.”

Gorsuch is expected to continue his book tour this week with a series of other interviews, including an appearance at the Reagan Library in California.

https://www.cf.org/news/justice-gorsuch-warns-biden-to-be-careful-with-supreme-court-reforms/