EDITORIAL: Biden’s radical plan to hijack the Supreme Court

Mr. Biden picked himself up off the curb on Monday long enough to unveil a plan to end lifetime tenure for the justices and to allow Congress to become involved in enforcing a code of ethics for those on the court. In other words, we have a man who has been part of the Washington bureaucracy for half a century now embracing term limits and an administration that maintains its political opponents are a “threat to democracy” proposing to ignore the separation of powers and the wisdom of the Founders.

In reality, the proposal has no chance of passing a divided Congress. There are constitutional questions about its very feasibility. But it highlights how far progressives are willing to go to undermine established institutions and traditions in pursuit of power. There is only one reason Democrats have chosen this road, and it has nothing to do with “democracy.” Those on the far left are apoplectic with recent decisions and will do anything they can to tear down the court in hopes of rebuilding it with justices who embrace a post-constitutionalist worldview that recognizes virtually no limits on federal authority.

There is a valid reason why federal judges are appointed for life. In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton noted that “the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.” Lifetime tenure was put in place to shield the federal courts from political pressures and to ensure their independence. Mr. Biden’s radical proposal would undermine that important objective and create a judiciary more subject to the whims of the executive and legislative branches.

As for the ethics code, the justices have adopted such guidelines, and it is up to the justices to enforce them. Giving Congress a role in this regard would further erode judicial autonomy. “Liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone,” Hamilton wrote, “but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments. … The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution.”

But for all their talk about “democracy,” Mr. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their fellow travelers on the left aren’t interested in “a limited Constitution” or judicial independence. They seek a Supreme Court that bows to their demands. And they aren’t particularly concerned about what norms they have to trample to get it.