Justice Neil Gorsuch had a plain message when asked about President Biden’s new Supreme Court reform proposals: “Be careful.”
“You’re not going to be surprised that I’m not going to get into what is now a political issue during a presidential election year. I don’t think that would be helpful,” Gorsuch began when asked about the proposal on “Fox News Sunday.”
But the conservative justice then indicated he had “one thought to add,” going on to stress the importance of an independent judiciary.
“And so, I just say, be careful,” Gorsuch told host Shannon Bream.
Biden announced the three-pronged proposal last week, calling for 18-year term limits for the justices, an enforceable code of ethics and a constitutional amendment to counteract the Supreme Court’s recent presidential immunity decision.
It marked a major shift for the president, who had long resisted calls from the left for reform. The announcement was met with condemnation from Republicans, who have declared the proposal dead on arrival and cast it as an attempt to tear down the conservative-majority court.
Gorsuch’s rare interview on Fox came days before Tuesday’s scheduled release of his new book, “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law,” which Gorsuch co-wrote with one of his former clerks.
In the book, Gorsuch details what he sees as the downsides of overregulation and an explosion of laws.
“As a judge now for 18 years, I just came to see case after case in which ordinary Americans — just trying to live their lives, not hurt anybody, raise their families — were just getting whacked by laws unexpectedly,” Gorsuch said on Fox.
Gorsuch is set to go on the road later this week to promote the book, stopping at both the Nixon and Reagan presidential libraries.
“On the one hand, we need laws to keep us free and safe,” he told Bream in the interview.
“On the other hand, if you have too many laws, you impair those same freedoms and our aspirations for equality, too, because who can deal with a world with so much law?” Gorsuch continued.