Dem
51
GOP
49
Yesterday, in our item about Joe Biden's proposals to reform the Supreme Court, we added: "by the time you read this, we expect that Kamala Harris will have already said she is for it." That was a very easy prediction, along the lines of predicting that the next time you see Donald Trump, his tie won't be tied properly.
Harris did indeed come out for the plan, issuing a statement that read, in part:
In the course of our Nation's history, trust in the Supreme Court of the United States has been critical to achieving equal justice under law. 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.
That is why President Biden and I are calling on Congress to pass important reforms - from imposing term limits for Justices' active service, to requiring Justices to comply with binding ethics rules just like every other federal judge. And finally, in our democracy, no one should be above the law. So we must also ensure that no former President has immunity for crimes committed while in the White House.
These popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the Court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law.
So, instead of being the Biden plan, it's now the Biden-Harris plan. Of course, you can be absolutely certain that the presumptive Democratic nominee had input into the plan before it was released.
We have written it before, when Biden first began talking about Supreme Court reform, and we'll now write it again: This is smart politics. Approval ratings for the Supreme Court are very low; Gallup has the Supremes at 43% approve (vs. 52% disapprove), and other pollsters have it even worse. The specific reforms that Biden is proposing have broad support. For example, among 2020 Biden voters, 69% want term limits for justices while only 6% oppose them. Even among 2020 Trump voters, 54% want term limits versus 20% who oppose.
When you have an issue that nearly your entire party agrees on, and that the majority of the other party agrees on as well, you'd be a damn fool not to ride it for all it's worth. You can bet that Biden and Harris both saw polls telling them that this is a winner, and we presume she's going to make it a signature issue. As an added bonus, it dovetails well with the Democrats' other big winner of an issue, namely abortion access.
Meanwhile, few people think that everything is copacetic with John Roberts and his merry gang. This makes it pretty difficult to take the other side of the issue, so much so that we only found one outlet doing so (The Wall Street Journal, another Rupert Murdoch paper; more on that below). Even Donald Trump does not appear to have blasted the Biden-Harris plan, as yet. We even reviewed his account on his about-to-drop-below-$30-a-share social media platform, and it was all just repostings of clumsy anti-Harris memes from users like "Mar-a-Lago Dog" and "LEFTURD SLAYER."
What we did see yesterday were pieces like this one, decreeing that the Biden-Harris plan is unrealistic and isn't going to become law. First of all, you never know—almost every constitutional amendment seemed impossible, until it wasn't. Second, this misses the point. Biden is a skilled practitioner of the strategy of starting with a BIG opening bid, and then settling somewhere in the middle. Remember that the $1.5 trillion American Recovery Act started out as the $7 trillion American Recovery Act. Yes, $1.5 trillion is way less than $7 trillion, but it's also way more than $0 trillion. It's clear to us, at least, that Biden and Harris are making an opening bid, and doing what they can to slide the Overton Window in their direction. Then, if she's elected (and the Democrats get the trifecta), she'll compromise on something less substantive than two constitutional amendments and an ethics code, but more substantive than "nothing."
On a semi-related note, Harris also announced yesterday that, if she is elected president, she will not push to ban fracking. Being anti-fracking is rather necessary for a Democrat trying to get elected in California. It is not a great position for anyone trying to get elected nationally, since nearly all Republicans like oil, and many Democrats come from states where fracking is popular (Sens. John Fetterman, D-PA, and Jon Tester, D-MT, leap to mind as strongly pro-fracking members of the blue team).
The Trump campaign, aided by right-wing media allies, is trying to make hay out of Harris' shifting position on this issue. However, Trump criticized her over the weekend for being anti-fracking, which means... he got what he wanted. It's a little tricky to turn around and criticize her now for being pro-fracking. Also, voters tend to have some tolerance for the fact that politicians sometimes have to change their stances on second-tier issues, depending on which constituency they are endeavoring to represent. Compare Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), for one example.
What connects Supreme Court and fracking is that Harris is right in the middle of introducing herself to the country, which means it's prime time for her to make very clear where she stands on the issues. She's also very clearly in the middle of a "honeymoon" phase, which may last a week, or may last until Election Day—who knows? In any case, the time to take on new "causes," and definitely the time to distance one's self from troublesome past stances is while the honeymoon is still underway, since many people don't know about her old positions. (Z)