President Joe Biden is calling for U.S. Supreme Court reform this week. Having seen how well court packing, term limits and crony justices have worked in the economically failed dictatorship of Venezuela, our lame-duck president, who constantly warns us of threats to democracy, wants to implement those Venezuelan reforms in the U.S.
Progressives have been pushing for Supreme Court reforms since, well, since right-leaning justices became the majority. They aren’t calling for a few tweaks to the court. Their demands would amount to a complete restructuring. To put it simply, if Biden and the progressives succeed in imposing their reforms, they would fundamentally change the court — and the country.
Reports claim Biden wants to impose 18-year term limits on the justices and an enforceable code of ethics. Progressives have also been pushing to pack the court — adding at least four new left-wing justices to put the left in the majority. These reforms would mirror that paragon of democracy: Venezuela.
In 2004, strongman President Hugo Chávez succeeded in packing the country’s Supreme Court, known as the Supreme Tribunal of Justice. As Human Rights Watch wrote at the time: “The law passed in May expanded the court from 20 to 32 members. In addition to the justices named to the 12 new seats, five justices were named to fill vacancies that had opened in recent months, and 32 more were named as reserve justices for the court.”
The “reserve justices” are a calculated addition, because that same law made it easier to remove sitting justices and approve new ones. “The 17 new justices (and 32 reserves) were selected yesterday by a simply [sic] majority vote of the governing coalition, which did not reveal the names of the nominees to the opposition members of Congress until the time of the vote.” Let’s just say transparency isn’t Venezuela’s thing.
In addition, Biden reportedly wants to impose 18-term limits on the justices. Maybe he’s just mad because the elites in the Democratic Party just imposed term limits on him. Again, that move resembles Venezuela, which appoints justices for 12-year nonrenewable terms.
Finally, Biden wants the justices subjected to some type of yet-to-be-disclosed enforceable code of ethics. But who will develop and enforce the code? Members of Congress? The executive branch? Doesn’t that violate the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers? Left-leaning Justice Elena Kagan recently proposed having appointed federal judges from lower courts sit in judgment of the high court’s ethics, creating a number of awkward political and professional incentives.
Of course, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the progressive cabal will claim that whatever reforms they impose would ensure the independence of the Supreme Court. But court reformers in Venezuela made the same assurances. As Human Rights Watch pointed out, “In 1999 a constituent assembly convoked by President Chávez drafted a constitution that guarantees the independence of the judicial branch and the autonomy of the Supreme Court.” That guarantee was only as good as the promises of a ruthless group of power-hungry politicians. In fact, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice is now simply a tool of the executive branch — i.e., President Nicolás Maduro and Hugo Chávez before him.
The International Court of Jurists (ICJ) claims that the Supreme Tribunal of Justice is nothing but “an instrument of the executive branch.” The ICJ asserts, “The Supreme Court has been co-opted by the ruling party, becoming an appendage of the executive branch, and has ceased to exercise its constitutional function as the guarantor of the rule of law, human rights, and fundamental freedoms.” And that is exactly what will happen if Biden, Harris and the progressives succeed with their court reforms.
Their goal is not to put more justices on the court, but left-wing justices who will support their leftist agenda. Imposing term limits will help progressives get any conservatives out sooner so they can put in more leftie justices. And an ethics code is intended to let the executive branch remove any justice who won’t play the leftists’ game.
Ironically, Biden has generally resisted progressive calls for court reform because he (correctly) feared it would politicize the court. Apparently, he is now all for politicizing the body.
The good news is that it is extremely unlikely that Biden’s reforms will pass. Some proposals would need legislation, which the current House of Representatives won’t pass. Other reforms would need a Constitutional amendment, which would be even harder to get through.
Venezuela just held its presidential election, and both Maduro and the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, claim victory. No one seriously believes Maduro received the majority of votes. But if the election ends up in the country’s Supreme Court, you know who will be declared the winner. And that’s why court reform has moved to the top of progressives’ agenda.
Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, Texas. Follow him on X@MerrillMatthews.