One of the persistent themes of the leftist commentariat across the past decade has been the purportedly authoritarian tendencies of President Donald J. Trump, who supposedly has a plan — yet to be revealed after many years of public life — for the dissolution of Constitutional governance and the implementation of personal rule. To date, the primary vehicles for the execution of this plan have been public persuasion, contesting free elections and winning a fair and open primary — none of which the Biden-Harris regime can claim in 2024.
So when that regime proposes a genuinely authoritarian change to the Constitutional order, curbing the judiciary as established by the American Founders in favor of massively expanded presidential power, the silence from that same commentariat is deafening — and telling. The Biden-Harris release of its so-called “Bold Plan to Reform the Supreme Court and Ensure No President Is Above the Law” has been met with none of the media hysterics that would accompany anything remotely comparable from Trump. So be it: Sometimes a reminder that there is a whole apparatus at work on the other side is useful.
Americans, however, would do well to pay attention to the content of the “Bold Plan,” because it is really a bold plan for striking at the heart of American Constitutional governance. Sweeping in its ambition and sharp in its attack upon the institutions safeguarding our liberties, it deserves a close look — not just as an expression of the priorities of Joe Biden, but as a warning of the agenda of Kamala Harris, without whose approval the plan would never have been issued.
The plan proposes three reforms. The first purports to render presidents to criminal law, which they already are except in the prudential-exception sphere of official acts, a category that will no doubt be the subject of future disputation. The left’s fixation upon this point across the past several weeks has been, to be charitable, motivated. Everyone understood that presidents were not personally liable for criminal prosecution in the course of their work as president — Joe Biden will never go to court for, for example, sending American aid to Ukraine. The reason for this protection is simply to ensure that the constitutional offices of state may function. No president may do his job if constantly subjected to personal risk of litigation. The very prospect would paralyze the Executive Branch. And this is the key to understanding why the Biden-Harris regime wants to do it.
Because they do not expect to win on November 5th, the purpose of this measure is to set up a mechanism for hobbling the incoming Trump-Vance Administration — and then, should they return to power afterward, to prosecute and jail their political opponents. We’ve seen in 2024 alone that this is something they are very much willing to do, and they ought to be denied the opportunity to cripple American government in this fashion. It is a mindset and a tool more common to Latin America or Africa than the United States of America.
The second and third reforms essentially end the independence of the federal judiciary, as conceived by the Founders, in favor of subordinating it to the Executive and Legislative branches in equal measure. The Executive accrues the power to appoint a new Supreme-Court justice every two years, as old ones cycle to the end of an eighteen-year term; and the Congress accrues the power to regulate the conduct of the justices while in office. This goes well beyond the ordinary powers of appointment, confirmation and impeachment-and-removal that already exist as checks upon the Judicial Branch. Under the “Bold Plan,” the Supreme Court would be frequently subjected to presidential interference by means of appointments — a minimum of two for every president — and to continuous congressional interference by means of regulation and standards. Whatever one wishes to call this, it is absolutely not an independent judiciary — which is to say, it is not what we have relied upon for two and a half centuries to safeguard our liberties as Americans.
The question arises as to why this, and why now? It is partially answered above, in the desire to subject political opponents who dare to win to the vicissitudes of revenge. We should also understand that the Supreme Court of the United States works perfectly well, precisely as the American Founders envisioned — and that is why the left, with the Biden-Harris regime atop it, wants to curb and control it. They’ve taken a devastating series of losses across the past couple of years, mostly notably (but not only) the overturning of Roe and Chevron, and wish to claw their power back. The final reason is that an independent judiciary is always an enemy of any authoritarian movement — which is why the Trump Administration never sought to change it, and why the Biden-Harris regime does. It’s no accident that the narco-state leftists controlling Mexico now are advancing their own similar version of judicial “reform.” The Biden-Harris folks may not have done a good job advancing the American Dream across four years, but they’ve found their way toward the vision of squalid socialist politicos in Mexico City.
America deserves better — and America will get it. The “Bold Plan” will fail, not least because much of it requires a Constitutional amendment, but that failure is insufficient. Americans need to look upon it, understand it — and know just who wants it, and why.
Brooke Leslie Rollins is the President & CEO of the America First Policy Institute and former Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.
