拜登呼吁对最高法院进行重大改革

【中美创新时报2024 年 7 月 30 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）拜登总统警告说，该国的法院正被用作推动“极端和不受制约”的保守议程的武器，周一表示，他将推动立法，对最高法院进行重大改革，包括对法官实施任期限制和制定可执行的道德准则。《纽约时报》记者凯蒂·罗杰斯（Katie Rogers）对此作了下述报道。

拜登在德克萨斯州奥斯汀的林登·约翰逊总统图书馆和博物馆发表演讲，详细介绍了他的计划，这是他自上周宣布决定结束总统竞选以来的首次公开活动。

他的访问最初被安排为纪念《民权法案》颁布 60 周年的活动。但它很快就成为拜登开始整理 57 年立法遗产的场所，同时概述了选举年的意图，试图阻止他的党内许多人认为的最高法院意识形态向保守主义的转变。

本月，法院以 6 比 3 的投票结果做出了一项裁决，赋予总统广泛的豁免权，使其在任期间的行为免于起诉。

拜登在讲话中说：“从所有实际目的来看，法院的裁决几乎肯定意味着总统可以违背誓言、藐视我们的法律，而不必承担任何后果。” “伙计们，想象一下，如果总统拥有这种豁免权，他会如何践踏公民权利和自由。”

拜登警告说，“极端主义正在破坏公众对法院裁决的信心”，他说，保守派计划在特朗普第二届政府中进行全面政策改革，即所谓的 2025 项目，将继续推动法院向右翼靠拢。

“他们是认真的，伙计，”拜登在谈到 2025 项目时说。 “他们正计划再次对美国公民权利发起攻击。”

拜登的言论得到了党内其他人的支持，包括民主党总统候选人、副总统卡马拉·哈里斯 (Kamala Harris)，她表示自己是这项努力的合作伙伴，并将在竞选中采纳拜登的提议。

她在竞选团队发出的一份声明中表示：“这些受欢迎的改革将有助于恢复人们对法院的信心，加强我们的民主，确保没有人凌驾于法律之上。”

该提案需要国会批准，在共和党控制的众议院和分裂的参议院中获得支持的可能性很小。路易斯安那州共和党众议员迈克·约翰逊 (Mike Johnson) 在社交媒体帖子中称该提案在众议院“一经通过就夭折”。

保守派活动家伦纳德·A·利奥 (Leonard A. Leo) 以将任命保守派法官作为共和党议程的核心而闻名，他抨击拜登的努力是党派主义：“这是民主党人摧毁他们不同意的法院，”他在一份声明中说。

拜登和他的顾问认为，美国人普遍对最高法院的内部运作感到担忧，自拜登上任以来，最高法院的立场一直向右转。最近的民意调查显示，最高法院的支持率处于历史最低水平，大多数美国人认为最高法院的判决是由意识形态驱动的。

在过去两年里，克拉伦斯·托马斯大法官因未能披露亿万富翁捐助者赠送的礼物和豪华旅行而陷入道德丑闻。塞缪尔·阿利托大法官因为何在 2021 年 1 月 6 日国会大厦袭击事件的旗帜飘扬在他家门外而受到质疑。

在图书馆，拜登赞扬了约翰逊政府通过的三项具有里程碑意义的立法：1964 年《民权法案》、《投票权法案》和《公平住房法案》。

“总的来说，这三项法案让这个国家从根本上更加公平、更加公正，最重要的是，从根本上更加符合我们的建国原则，”拜登说道，赢得了掌声。他说，最高法院最近的几次改革“摧毁”了从平权行动到投票权的努力，并警告说，特朗普再次当选总统将把最高法院推向更极端的境地。

他在《华盛顿邮报》发表的一篇评论文章中写道，最高法院决定给予总统在任期间犯下的罪行以广泛的豁免权，这是“危险和极端”决策的一个例子，将美国人民置于危险之中。

拜登在奥斯汀发表讲话时表示，最高法院法官的终身任命制度让总统几十年来拥有了不当影响力。

“我认为最好的结构是 18 年的任期限制，这将有助于确保国家不会出现现在的情况：一个极端的法院，”拜登说。

拜登表示，他支持一项行为准则，该准则要求大法官披露礼物、不参与公开政治活动，并回避他们或他们的配偶存在经济或其他利益冲突的案件，称这些是“绝大多数美国人支持的常识性改革”。

他还呼吁对宪法进行修订，以限制最高法院上个月任期结束时支持的广泛总统豁免权。白宫表示，该修正案将规定，宪法不赋予前总统任何联邦刑事起诉、审判、定罪或判刑的豁免权。但限制这一决定的宪法修正案将面临挑战，需要国会三分之二的投票或三分之二的州召开的大会，然后由四分之三的州立法机构批准。

圣母大学教授宪法的理查德·W·加内特 (Richard W. Garnett) 表示，即使国会有意愿通过拜登提出的那种立法，任期限制和退休年龄等问题也会出现重大的法律问题。

“我们实际上并没有完全明确的规则来规定国会能够在多大程度上规范法院的内部实践，”加内特说。“退休年龄和任期限制的问题因宪法文本而变得复杂。我认为披露规则之类的事情可能属于不同的类别。”

特朗普本月在社交媒体上谴责了拜登的想法，指责他和民主党人“拼命试图‘扮演裁判’，呼吁对我们神圣的美国最高法院进行非法和违宪的攻击。”

本文最初发表于《纽约时报》。

题图：拜登总统。TIERNEY L. CROSS/NYT

附原英文报道：

Biden calls for major changes to Supreme Court

By Katie Rogers New York Times,Updated July 29, 2024 

AUSTIN, Texas — President Biden, warning that the country’s courts were being weaponized to push an “extreme and unchecked” conservative agenda, said Monday he would push for legislation that would bring major changes to the Supreme Court, including imposing term limits and creating an enforceable code of ethics on the justices.

Biden detailed his plans in a speech at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, his first public engagement since announcing his decision to end his presidential campaign last week.

His visit was initially scheduled as an event to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. But it quickly became a venue for Biden to begin buttoning up a 57-year legislative legacy while outlining an election-year intention to try to stop what many in his party feel is the Supreme Court’s ideological drift into conservatism.

This month, the court issued a 6-3 ruling that grants broad immunity to presidents from prosecution for actions they take while in office.

“For all practical purposes, the court’s decision almost certainly means that the president can violate the oath, flout our laws, and face no consequences,” Biden said during his remarks. “Folks, just imagine what a president could do trampling civil rights and liberties, given such immunity.”

Biden, warning that “extremism is undermining the public confidence in the court’s decisions,” said that conservative plans for sweeping policy changes in a second Trump administration, known as Project 2025, would continue to push the courts to the right.

“They’re serious, man,” Biden said, referring to the Project 2025 plan. “They’re planning another onslaught attacking civil rights in America.”

Biden’s remarks were met with support from others in his party, including Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who said she was a partner in the effort and would take up Biden’s proposal in her campaign.

“These popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the court, strengthen our democracy and ensure no one is above the law,” she said in a statement sent by her campaign.

The proposal would require congressional approval and has little hope of gaining traction in a Republican-controlled House and a divided Senate. In a social media post, Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, called the proposal “dead on arrival” in the House.

Conservative activist Leonard A. Leo, who is known for making the appointments of conservative judges a core of the Republican Party’s agenda, assailed Biden’s efforts as partisan: “It’s about Democrats destroying a court they don’t agree with,” he said in a statement.

Biden and his advisers argue that Americans are broadly concerned about the inner workings of a court that has swung to the right in the years since Biden took office. Recent polls show that the Supreme Court’s approval rating is at a historic low and that a majority of Americans believe that the court’s decisions are driven by ideology.

Over the past two years, Justice Clarence Thomas has become embroiled in ethical scandals for failing to disclose gifts and luxury trips bestowed by a billionaire benefactor. Justice Samuel Alito has faced scrutiny about why flags associated with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol flew outside his homes.

At the library, Biden praised three landmark pieces of legislation passed during the Johnson administration: The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act.

“Taken together, these three acts have made this nation fundamentally more fair, fundamentally more just and, most importantly, fundamentally more consistent with our founding principles,” Biden said to applause. He said that more recent iterations of the court had “eviscerated” efforts from affirmative action to voting rights, and warned that another Trump presidency would push the court into more extreme territory.

In an opinion essay published in The Washington Post, he wrote that the court’s decision to grant broad immunity to presidents for crimes they commit in office was an example of “dangerous and extreme” decision-making that had put the American people at risk.

In his remarks in Austin, Biden said the system of lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices gave a president undue influence for decades.

“I believe the best structure is the 18-year term limit that would help ensure the country would not have what it has now: an extreme court,” Biden said.

Biden said he supports a code of conduct that would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest, calling them “common sense reforms that a vast majority of Americans support.”

He also called for a constitutional amendment that could limit the broad presidential immunity that the court backed at the end of its term last month. That amendment would state that the Constitution does not confer to former presidents any immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction or sentencing, the White House said. But a constitutional amendment limiting that decision would face challenges, requiring two-thirds votes in Congress or at a convention called for by two-thirds of the states, followed by ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures.

Even if Congress had the will to pass the sort of legislation Biden is proposing, there would be significant legal questions around issues such as term limits and retirement ages, said Richard W. Garnett, who teaches constitutional law at Notre Dame.

“We don’t really have completely clear rules about the extent to which Congress is able to regulate the internal practices of the court,” Garnett said. “The things about retirement ages and term limits are complicated by the Constitution’s text. I think things like disclosure rules might be in a different category.”

Trump denounced Biden’s ideas on social media this month, accusing him and Democrats of “desperately trying to ‘Play the Ref’ by calling for an illegal and unConstitutional attack on our SACRED United States Supreme Court.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.