Conservative activist Leonard Leo expressed confidence that President Biden’s efforts to change the court will solidify his political base, but cautioned it may also work as a wake-up call for less-liberal voters in November.
“It’s a good political ploy. It certainly will help to energize a Democrat base that’s reeling from a lot of disorder and uncertainty lately. But ultimately, these are the kinds of proposals that, I think, not likely to be adopted, but if ever adopted, they would really politicize the institution,” Leo said.
During an interview, Leo pointed out that both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris – who will be the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee – could so easily motivate conservatives.
“President Biden putting the Supreme Court into play does have the potential to energize conservatives in the presidential election,” he said. “We know from experience that the court issue has always motivated conservatives and Republicans more than it motivated Democrats and liberals. So there’s a good chance that by putting this issue in full view, it just allows the Trump campaign and Republican candidates for the Senate and House to talk about the successes we’ve had with the Constitution and the rule of law, the Supreme Court over the past several years, and that we should want more of the same. So it could potentially backfire.”
Four years earlier, Donald Trump had debuted a list of potential Supreme Court justices in 2016 as the Republican nominee, an act that both mollified nervous conservatives and ended up paying off electorally. The vacancy of Justice Antonin Scalia after his death earlier that election year, with Senate Republicans refusing to hold hearings for Obama nominee Merrick Garland (who was made all sorts of content at Stanford by law students), underscored just how crucial the winner inside the White House itself would be.
Trump was later elected in 2016, which allowed him to nominate Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court (both of whom are Federalist Society members) before he nominated Amy Coney Barrett on his way out. Leo reportedly has been instrumental in helping the White House vet these originalist judges, adding to his power.
The blistering of Trump’s remarkable success at reshaping the judiciary enraged Democrats, who immediately began calling for massive reform. Biden, who said he would not run for a second term last week, also came out with a pitchfork in hand to satisfy his party’s left by calling on the bench. Those measures would be an 18-year term limit for justices; giving presidents the chance to fill new seats every two years, and imposing a “binding code of conduct” on the court that includes gift disclosures and restrictions against engaging in partisan political activity.
“President Biden’s proposed overhaul of the Supreme Court is really just another dressed-up attempt to pack the Supreme Court, and to attack the integrity of the court, without any real basis,” Leo told Fox News.
Democrats and the political left have attacked the Supreme Court for years. Biden and other senior Democrats have repeatedly condemned decisions such as throwing out Roe v. Wade, rulings finding presidential immunity, rejecting Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan, and restoring Trump to the Colorado ballot. Conservative justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas have also been attacked by left-leaning media outlets.
