President Joe Biden unveiled several proposed reforms for the Supreme Court on Monday, but his proposals are unlikely to be enacted and are intended to weaken the court, legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Biden is nearing the end of his presidency. push The Supreme Court would mandate term limits for judges, establish a binding code of ethics for the legal profession, and enact a “no one above the law” amendment to overturn a recent Supreme Court decision on the scope of immunity for former President Donald Trump's work while in office. With these proposals effectively stalled at the point of filing and little chance of making it through the amendment process, legal experts say Biden's moves are ultimately “political theater” and little more than revenge against the Supreme Court for rulings the Democrats don't like.

“This isn't an ethics issue, it's just, 'I don't like the decision the court made based on its interpretation of the Constitution and the law,' so it's political theater to make this public,” Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, told DCNF. “I think it's pretty clear what they're really trying to say… This is a benefit to the wealthiest people left in dark money, so Biden himself bought into it. You can see this was a last ditch effort to try to save his own campaign. Clearly, it was too late.” (Related article: Greg Jarrett says there's “zero chance” Biden will impose term limits on Supreme Court justices)

In recent years, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, struck down affirmative action in college admissions, weakened the administrative state, and more. These decisions, along with its decision in early July granting immunity to President Trump for certain official acts committed while in office, have led Democrats to denigrate the Supreme Court as an extremely biased, right-wing institution.

But a breakdown of Supreme Court decisions during the recently concluded session shows that of the 22 cases decided 6-3, only half were along ideological lines.

The White House said one of Biden's proposed changes would overturn a July 1 Supreme Court ruling on the issue of presidential immunity, which said the president is immune from prosecution for his official duties while in office. In its ruling, the Supreme Court acknowledged that Trump was asserting broader immunity than the ruling allowed.

Nonetheless, many Democrats argued that the Supreme Court has given the president the power to get away with almost anything by asserting presidential immunity.

But amending the constitution is a difficult, lengthy process that requires broad bipartisan agreement across the country, so the amendment is unlikely to come close to becoming law, said Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law.

“A constitutional amendment requires two-thirds votes from both houses of Congress and three-quarters votes from each state,” Blackmun told DCNF. “This proposal would never even make it past the House of Representatives.”

Under Biden's plan, the president would nominate a new Supreme Court justice every two years, with each justice serving an 18-year term. Such a system would “make the timing of Supreme Court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary” and “reduce the likelihood that a single presidency would have an undue influence on future generations,” according to the president's plan.

“There are pros and cons to term limits for judges, but they seem to me primarily as a solution to a problem,” John Malcolm said. The vice president of the Heritage Foundation's Institute for Constitutional Government told DCNF:Plus, it would require a constitutional amendment, making it unlikely to happen. And if anyone thinks that holding Supreme Court confirmation hearings more frequently would make the process less political, I'll sell them my beachfront property in the Mojave Desert.” (RELATED: 'It's not going to happen': CNN legal analyst dismisses Biden's 'wish list' of Supreme Court reforms)

Demonstrators attend a rally in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC on July 1, 2024 (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The lame-duck president has also proposed an “ethics code” for the Supreme Court, but experts say the DCNF is actually meant to serve as a tool to go after justices who seek to nullify or undermine left-wing policies. Opinion articles Addressing his proposal, Biden wrote in The Washington Post that the Supreme Court is “in the midst of an ethics crisis” that is “leading the American people to question the court's impartiality and independence.”

Democrats have widely publicized the Supreme Court's ethical crisis, especially following reports by the nonprofit media outlet ProPublica. series In 2023, numerous articles were published about Justice Clarence Thomas's relationship with real estate mogul Harlan Crow. These articles provided the basis for ongoing efforts by Democrats to push for ethics reform at the Supreme Court and to suggest that Justice Thomas was not impartial.

The outlet won a Pulitzer Prize for its work, but in June 2023, the DCNF demonstrated that ProPublica's major donors also funded numerous activist groups that had attacked Thomas over ethical concerns.

Recently, a series of news reports have emerged regarding Justice Samuel Alito in early 2024. Considered Along with Thomas, he is one of the most original justices on the current Supreme Court. In particular, the articles have focused on the flags that fly outside Justice Alito's home, with critics pointing out that the upside-down American flag and a Revolutionary War-era “Appeal to Heaven” flag that have been flown outside Justice Alito's home in the past indicate that he cannot be trusted to be impartial in cases involving January 6th and other similar issues.

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was accused of ethics violations in early July. Slam “It has become clear that the court cannot maintain its own legitimate conduct.”

“Efforts to impose enforceable judicial ethics rules on Supreme Court justices are nothing more than an attempt to manipulate the Supreme Court to achieve political ends,” Malcolm told DCNF. “In addition to the fact that the Constitution, not Congress, created the Supreme Court and therefore Congress has less power over the Supreme Court than it has over the courts it creates, neither Biden nor anyone on the left called for such 'reforms' when liberal justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer actually traveled overseas at the expense of billionaires who had cases pending before the Supreme Court.”

“Any enforcement proceedings would undoubtedly lead to a litany of baseless ethics allegations aimed at intimidating Republican appointees to the Supreme Court and lower courts,” Malcolm added.

Blackmun told the DCNF that such an ethics code “would be used for partisan purposes” and that “people would file frivolous complaints to remove conservative judges from cases.”

“Ethics reform sounds good, but it's a cynical solution in search of a problem; the justices unanimously issued a new ethics rule earlier this year. And the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision is not broad enough or groundbreaking enough to justify the joy of Trump's supporters or the despair of his opponents, and it doesn't merit a constitutional amendment,” said Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. Said “In essence, this is a case of a weakened president, pressured by left-wing activists to propose radical reforms to an institution that still commands more public trust than any other institution at the federal level except for the military,” he said in a statement about Biden's proposal.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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