Kamala Harris has finally gotten around to sharing an “issues” page on her campaign website—only seven weeks after securing the Democrat nomination. And surprise, surprise: her platform is a war on the Supreme Court. Because, apparently, when you can’t win the game, you try to change the rules.
On July 1, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a president enjoys “absolute immunity” for “actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” along with “presumptive immunity” for official acts. No immunity was granted for unofficial acts. This decision has thrown a serious wrench into the Biden-Harris administration’s attempts to keep former President Donald Trump tied up in endless legal battles.
Now, Harris is pledging to fight back “to ensure that no former president has immunity for crimes committed while in the White House.” But that’s not all. She’s also on board with so-called “common-sense Supreme Court reforms”—like mandating that justices comply with ethics rules applied to other federal judges and imposing term limits. These proposals are supposedly to address what she calls a “crisis of confidence” in the Supreme Court.
Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s remarkably similar to President Biden’s agenda. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, Biden lost no time in pushing for an overhaul of the court. In his op-ed for the media, Biden piously declared his “respect for our institutions and the separation of powers,” then quickly pivoted to outlining how the executive branch could join forces with Congress to rein in the judicial branch. Because nothing screams “respect” like undermining the independence of another branch of government.
Biden also urged Congress to pass a constitutional amendment that strips all presidents of immunity—even for official acts. He demanded term limits and a “binding code of conduct” for Supreme Court justices. It’s almost as if he thinks the president should have a direct hand in disciplining the highest court in the land. That’s what the Founding Fathers meant by checks and balances, right?
And if you thought the attacks would stop there, think again. A coalition of Democrats has assembled a task force—deceptively named Court Reform Now—that’s out to expand the bench, set term limits on justices, and enforce an ethics code drawn up through partisan public input. This task force even wants to create an independent review board to hear ethics complaints, giving them a nifty little tool to keep the Supreme Court under constant scrutiny. How convenient for them!
These radical calls for change to the court are only getting louder, and the media is eager to play along. Take the manufactured scandal surrounding conservative Justice Samuel Alito, for instance. His wife flew a flag upside down outside their home, which apparently offended their leftist neighbors. This was such a non-event that even the media didn’t bother with it three years ago. But now, it’s headline material, perfectly timed to give Democrats an excuse to push their extreme court reforms.
Representative Jamie Raskin, for instance, seized on this nonsense to threaten the creation of a federal ethics panel stacked with circuit judges, so Democrats can flood it with complaints about the Supreme Court. Biden, always game for a chance to sling mud, referenced this so-called scandal as evidence of the court being “mired in a crisis of ethics.” He went on to list several “scandals” supposedly plaguing the justices, which he claims have caused the public to question the court’s “fairness and independence.”
These baseless accusations of ethics violations are nothing more than a strategy to paint the court as a group of partisan ideologues who must be brought to heel. It’s a deliberate effort to turn justices into activists and ensure the court serves Democrat interests—just like so many lower courts already do.
But here’s the kicker: the Supreme Court issued more than two dozen unanimous decisions in its 2023 term alone. These decisions found that some lower courts—often dominated by liberal judges—had made serious errors in judgment. This alone dismantles the Democrats’ argument for such radical reform. If the Supreme Court is supposedly compromised, how do you explain unanimous rulings that cut across ideological lines?
For example, the court unanimously ruled on Trump’s ballot eligibility in Colorado. Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted that “our differences are far less important than our unanimity,” emphasizing that all nine justices were in agreement on the case’s outcome.
So, what does this tell us? The real threat of partisan extremism isn’t coming from the Supreme Court’s current structure or makeup. It’s coming from left-leaning lower court justices and Democrat lawmakers who seem hell-bent on dismantling the Supreme Court as we know it—all to push their political agenda. And if you think they’ll stop there, think again. This is only the beginning of their crusade to reshape every American institution that doesn’t align with their vision.
