Biden calls for term limits, ethics code for Supreme Court – National & International News – MON 29Jul2024

Biden calls for term limits, ethics code for Supreme Court.

Venezuela: Protests after Maduro wins third term.

NATIONAL NEWS

Biden calls for term limits, ethics code for Supreme Court

President Biden has called for extensive reforms to the Supreme Court which he says are necessary to counteract an “extreme and unchecked agenda” being propagated by the court. Biden first raised the idea of reforms after the court’s highly controversial ruling in a case brought by Donald Trump that Presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution for actions committed while in office.

Activists and many of Biden’s fellow Democratic politicians have been calling for an overhaul of the court for years. Some have even called for the number of Justices to be increased, a practice known as “court packing”. That is not a proposal Biden is embracing, but he is calling for term limits to be imposed as well as a code of ethics. The Supreme Court is the only court in the US whose members are not bound by an enforceable ethics code. 

There is a clear divide between Republican and Democrat politicians over court reforms, with Democratic politicians in favor and Republican politicians vehemently opposed. However, the American public ragrees that serious reforms are needed, regardless of their party affiliation. A recent YouGov poll found that 71% of Americans (86% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans) agree that the court should have a binding ethics code. On term limits, 70% of Americans (89% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans) agree that there should be a maximum number of years a Justice can serve on the court.

Despite broad popular support for Supreme Court reform, such measures are unlikely to get through a divided Congress. Instead, Biden is using this issue to galvanize voters and set an agenda for a potential future Democratic administration.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Venezuela: Protests after Maduro wins third term

Thousands of Venezuelans are protesting and clashing with police in the streets of Caracas to express their displeasure with the outcome of yesterday’s election. With 80% of the votes counted, Nicolas Maduro won a third 6-year term in office by 51.21% of the vote. His rival Edmundo González Urrutia won 44.2%. However, Gonzalez’s party the Democratic Unity Roundtable (a coalition of opposition parties) has publicly disputed the result of the election, claiming that Maduro rigged the results in his favor. In fact, fellow DUR politician María Corina Machado went so far as to claim Gonzalez had won 70% of the vote according to her party’s polling, which has not been published.

Two organizations who conducted exit polling also predicted a huge win for Gonzalez. Exit polls by American poll watcher group Edison predicted that González had won 65% of the vote while Maduro had won 31%. Meganalisis, a Venezuelan organization, also conducted an exit poll that predicted Gonzalez won 65% of the vote and that Maduro had won under 14%.

The Carter Center, an election monitoring organization founded by former US President Jimmy Carter, has not expressed an opinion on the outcome but urged Venezuela’s election authorities to immediately publish the full election results. Some Latin American countries cast doubt or outright rejected the results while others were quick to congratulate Maduro. Maduro has withdrawn diplomats from countries whose leaders rejected the outcome of the election. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had “serious concerns” about the Venezuelan election.

Maduro is the political heir and protege of former President Hugo Chavez, an outspoken opponent of the US government and its decades of meddling in Latin American political affairs. 

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