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

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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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