But Fleischmann, a Republican House member from Tennessee, and the sitting president are miles apart on the process to get there.
“I think it would be a good idea for them to do it but let them do it of their own volition and in their own lane … constitutionally,” Fleischmann said on Washington Watch Tuesday.
Biden in a speech in Austin, Texas this week continued to push for changes at the Supreme Court that are more than an ethics code and none of them voluntary. Biden believes a code of ethics should be enforceable, that justices should have term limits and that a constitutional amendment should be passed to take deny immunity from prosecution for presidents for official acts while in office.
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote on July 1, granted that immunity to presidents, a decision that gave a boost to former president and 2024 hopeful Donald Trump.
In a different political world Biden himself could benefit from immunity, but an investigation into Biden family corruption that originated in the House Oversight Committee gained no traction with a Democrat-controlled Senate or with Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland.
In an op-ed written for The Washington Post on Monday, Biden said, “This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one.”
Dead on arrival in the House
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Biden’s plan is dead on arrival in his chamber, calling it a “radical overhaul” that would “erode not only the rule of law, but the American people’s faith in our system of justice.”
“It's a political stunt, but it's such a weak political stunt," Fleischmann told show host Tony Perkins. "It doesn't take someone with a Ph.D. in political science to realize that this has absolutely no chance of passing, has no chance of getting any traction in the House. The Senate, they won't touch it. It will go absolutely nowhere."
The term limits and binding code of ethics would be addressed through legislation. That would require a simple majority of 218 votes in the House. Republicans can reject any efforts to change the Court with a simple party line vote. Such legislation almost certainly would never be brought to a vote.
“This dangerous gambit of the Biden-Harris Administration is dead on arrival in the House,” Johnson wrote.
Congress lacks the authority to make such dramatic changes, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisconsin) said on American Family Radio Wednesday.
“We’re not going to take it up because it’s unconstitutional,” Tiffany told show host Jenna Ellis.
Democrats have 51 seats in the Senate, a two-seat majority. Democrats could pass such legislation in a party-line vote but would need stray Republicans to help overcome a GOP-led filibuster to prevent a floor vote.
Democrats were not bent out of shape when the Supreme Court had more left-leaning justices.
“For years, the Left engaged in what we call judicial activism. They tried to put in their radical left-wing agenda and expand that. Since they've lost that ability, now they want to change the rules. Plain and simple, when the Left loses by the rules they put in place, they try to change the rules. In a word, it's cheating,” Fleischmann said.
Tiffany said Biden’s proposal is a get-out-the-vote effort in sheep’s clothing.
“This is to motivate Democrats. There is nothing better to motivate their base, which has been very sullen over the last couple of months viewing Joe Biden as their candidate. Once we get through the honeymoon phase with Kamala Harris people are going to figure out she’s nothing great. They’ve got to get their base motivated, and this is the way to do it, to turn on the Court,” Tiffany said.
Court ploy similar to student loan forgiveness
The congressman compared it to earlier Biden efforts to win the hearts of young voters with student loan debt forgiveness.
“President Biden and his advisers, they knew that the Court was going to strike this down because it was unconstitutional. A year prior to him doing it Nancy Pelosi said, ‘No, you can’t do that, you’ve got to send it through the House of Representatives and Congress.’ This is the same instance. They know this isn’t going anywhere. This is meant to gin up their base for 2024,” Tiffany said.
Biden’s original student loan plan – which would have cost taxpayers more than $400 billion – was struck down by the Supremes in a 6-3 vote.
In the ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Congress would need to “speak clearly before a department secretary can unilaterally alter large sections of the American economy.”
Months before he declared "nobody is above the law" in a newspaper op-ed, Biden pledged that his administration would come up with a work-around.
“I will stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families,” he said after the ruling. He’s made good on that promise with more targeted, less-sweeping measures that have not yet been challenged at the Supreme Court.
Altering the Supreme Court presents Biden with a more difficult challenge. The legislation process is one, but a constitutional amendment is even more daunting.
A proposed amendment must receive not just a simple majority, but a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate. It must also be ratified by 38 of the 50 states.
It’s all about power
The whole discussion underscores Democrats’ thirst for power, Fleischmann said.
“They want left-wing activism, not only in the economic realm, but in the social realm. That's their ethos. That's their desire. They work all three branches of government, including the executive branch with their executive orders from Biden and radical left-wing presidents that hurt the country when they can't get it through the legislative process where it belongs.”
