Biden Forming a Commission on Supreme Court Reform

President Joe Biden will establish a bipartisan commission on possible reforms to the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary.

It will be working under White House Counsel’s office, and Biden campaign’s lawyer Bob Bauer is helping fill out the commission.

Three people who have allegedly been selected are Cristina Rodríguez, a professor at Yale Law School; Caroline Fredrickson, the former president of the American Constitution Society who worked in the Obama Department of Justice; and Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor who worked in the Bush Department of Justice, Politico reported.

Fredrickson is known for advocating for expanding the Supreme Court, while Goldsmith a conservative who supported Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment of a Justice.

Biden made a campaign promise to establish such a commission in response to Democrat outrage that Republicans shoved forward Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court in eight days, a few weeks before the election.

In 2015, the Republican-controlled Senate refused to give Obama’s choice for an open Supreme Court justice a hearing, arguing that it was unfair to let a president fill a Supreme Court seat during election year. In 2020, they promptly discarded the rule they created in 2015.

Conservatives and liberals alike have expressed frustration with the small size and lifetime appointments on the Supreme Court. An attempt to remedy the nature of the court has included suggesting limiting a president to two picks, and setting term limits at eighteen years.

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smarcus@hamodia.com