Biden says he'd put together a bipartisan court reform commission as president

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in a new interview says he'd seek court reform recommendations from a bipartisan commission if elected.

Biden made these comments in an interview set to air on 60 Minutes after facing questions in recent weeks about his position on the idea of packing the Supreme Court.

"If elected, what I will do is I'll put together a national commission, a bipartisan commission, of scholars, constitutional scholars — Democrats, Republicans, liberal, conservative — and I will ask them to, over 180 days, come back to me with recommendations as to how to reform the court system, because it's getting out of whack the way in which it's being handled," Biden said.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Biden had been repeatedly asked whether he would support expanding the Supreme Court, a move some Democrats called for after Republicans announced they would move to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat before the election. In numerous interviews, Biden declined to specifically answer the question, although he recently said he's "not a fan of court packing."

In the 60 Minutes interview, Biden said he would look at his commission's recommendations and that they could involve several options outside of court packing.

"It's not about court packing, there's a number of other things that our constitutional scholars have debated," Biden said. "And I'd look to see what recommendations that commission might make. ... There's a number of alternatives that go well beyond packing."

Biden added that "the last thing we need to do is turn the Supreme Court into just a political football, whoever has the most votes gets whatever they want." Brendan Morrow