President also says presidential immunity for crimes should be removed and ethics rules for justices should be stricter
Joe Biden has called for a series of reforms to the US Supreme Court, including the introduction of term limits for justices and a constitutional amendment to remove immunity for crimes committed by a president while in office.
In an op-ed published on Monday morning, the president said justices should be limited to a maximum of 18 years’ service on the court rather than the current lifetime appointment, and also said ethics rules should be strengthened to regulate justices’ behavior.
The call for reform comes after the supreme court ruled in early July that former presidents have some degree of immunity from prosecution, a decision that served as a major victory for Donald Trump amid his legal travails.
“This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States,” Biden wrote.
Remove it as an an option.
Right now, any one senator can stop a vote on any bill by announcing they filibuster it.
That used to (decades ago) require them to stand and talk as long as they were able, to delay voting on the bill.
Now without the “talking filibuster” requirement, it becomes trivially easy for any senator to stop anything they don’t like.
A filibuster can be broken, and a vote can be forced to happen, if 60 of the 100 senators agree to it.
That almost never happens, as no one party ever gets a 60 seat “super-majority”.
Removing the filibuster will allow most any bill to pass with a standard 51% majority.
Stopping the minority party from blocking everything they don’t like.
The rules of the Senate itself can be changed with with a simple 51% majority, since they aren’t Laws that govern the land.
So it is possible to eliminate the filibuster without requiring a filibuster breaking super-majority.
Ok. I understand now. Thank you for the explanation.