Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren President JOE BIDEN’s push for historic changes to the Supreme Court, when it was drawn up weeks ago, was seen by some aides as an initiative that could shore up support from the Democratic Party base at a precarious political moment — and as a genuine and important evolution in Biden’s position over just the past several months. Biden’s speech at the LBJ Library in Austin was initially scheduled for the first night of the Republican convention, but it was pulled down after former President DONALD TRUMP was shot just days before. Aides rescheduled it for last week, but that was delayed, too, after the president’s decision to end his reelection bid. When he finally outlined his proposal on Monday afternoon, Biden was no longer his party’s presidential candidate or its main character. And the proposal is now being viewed largely through the lens of how it may affect Vice President KAMALA HARRIS’ campaign and, to a lesser extent, his own legacy. Biden opposed structural changes to the Court in 2022 following the Dobbs decision that ended 50 years of federal abortion protections. But he changed his mind once news broke of justices’ ethical lapses and the Court’s ruling just weeks ago giving presidents immunity for crimes they may commit while in office, according to four officials who were granted anonymity to talk about private conversations. “We’ve seen some real red flags [in recent months],” said STEVE BENJAMIN, the director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, explaining the president’s evolution on the matter to reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday en route to Texas. Since taking office, Biden had grown increasingly frustrated with the rightward lean of the high court, finding many of its decisions — on voting rights, student loans and abortion — out of step with the majority of Americans, the officials said. But he was reluctant to propose major changes to the court; early in his term, a study of the court that could have led to some reforms was largely swept aside. But over the last year, he grew more open to considering reforms. He raised the subject at a gathering of historians and legal scholars at the White House earlier this year, according to one of the officials and one other person familiar with the meeting. And when the Supreme Court issued its ruling earlier this month granting presidents broad immunity for actions while in office, Biden was incensed and deemed the decision “a dangerous precedent” that “undermines the rule of law.” That decision accelerated the work that was already underway. And it came just days after Biden’s disastrous debate performance and his team’s frantic efforts to rebuild support. Ideas to reform the court had long been championed by Democrats and its popularity convinced the Biden team to push forward. The president himself first hinted at the plan during a July 13 Zoom call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus while he was still running for reelection, according to a recording first obtained by The Washington Post. He pointed to all of it in an op-ed published by The Washington Post on Monday that laid out his plan: 18-year term limits and a binding ethical code for the court, along with an end to blanket criminal immunity for presidents. “What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions,” Biden wrote. As a committed institutionalist who’s overseen Supreme Court nominations as the former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and now appointed a justice to the court himself, Biden noted he does not take this position lightly, nor did he come to it quickly. The bigger question is how seriously people take his effort now that the president is no longer a candidate and that Congress isn’t likely to act on any of this any time soon. "I have great respect for our institutions, for the separation of powers laid out in our constitution," Biden said in his remarks from the LBJ Library. "But what's happening now is not consistent with that doctrine of separation of powers." Railing against the Supreme Court's immunity ruling, which he said was a decision granted to serve Trump's interests alone, Biden continued: "We're a nation of laws, not kings and dictators." While Biden has abandoned his own reelection bid, his aides believe the proposal — even if it’s all but certain to go down to defeat — could become part of his legacy and lay a framework for future reform, the officials said. In the short term, the new push offers an early look at how Biden and Harris will work in tandem now that she, not he, has become the party’s standard bearer. How much the White House and Harris campaign make these proposals a central focus remains to be seen, but there is no daylight between them on the substance. Before she’d replaced Biden atop the ticket, Harris was consulted about the president’s plan to call for reforms with the president and his aides citing her work on the Senate Judiciary Committee and her experience as California state Attorney General, according to one of the officials. On Monday, Harris’ campaign quickly put out a statement endorsing the plan, describing it as a joint effort. “President Biden and I strongly believe that the American people must have confidence in the Supreme Court. Yet today, there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court as its fairness has been called into question after numerous ethics scandals and decision after decision overturning long-standing precedent,” she said. “That is why President Biden and I are calling on Congress to pass important reforms.” MESSAGE US — Are you Chief Justice JOHN ROBERTS? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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