With President Joe Biden increasingly hostile to the Supreme Court and its rulings, his administration will have its work cut out for it after a term filled with setbacks.
The White House earned a split decision from the Supreme Court on June 30, coming out on top in a case that will allow it to end the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” immigration policy while having its climate change goals undermined in a case that limits the Environmental Protection Agency‘s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
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“The Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia vs. EPA is another devastating decision that aims to take our country backwards,” Biden said in a statement lambasting the court. “While this decision risks damaging our nation’s ability to keep our air clean and combat climate change, I will not relent in using my lawful authorities to protect public health and tackle the climate crisis.”
The White House has since begun outlining plans to move forward in light of the case, but Biden has also cast it and other rulings solidly as a midterm voting issue.
“Voters need to make their voices heard,” Biden said following the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade. “We need to restore the protections of Roe as law of the land. We need to elect officials who will do that.”
Biden is clinging to hopes that Congress might take action on the issue but will also need electoral wins to change the court itself.
While Supreme Court justices will never literally be on a ballot, Biden and Democrats may need to maintain their hold on the Senate, which they control only thanks to the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, in order to name a progressive justice should an opening come up in 2023 or 2024. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already said it’s “highly unlikely” he’d fill a Supreme Court vacancy in 2024 should Republicans take the chamber’s majority and added that he’d “wait and see” in 2023.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Biden nominee, was sworn in last week. But replacing fellow liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, who retired at the end of the term, she doesn’t affect the court’s ideological balance. Conservatives will still have a 6-3 majority.
Nonetheless, the president got a win on Thursday when the court ruled he could end Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy, a decision Democrats praised as humane and positive for asylum-seekers. Still, such a win leaves the administration in charge of an issue for which it has received sharp criticism. Fully 73% of respondents in a Rasmussen Reports survey called immigration a critical election issue, with 52% of likely voters saying the problem is getting worse, compared to just 11% who feel it is improving.
The American Enterprise Institute’s Philip Wallach previously told the Washington Examiner that losing in court can sometimes be a win for Biden, allowing him a way of “changing policies without shouldering the responsibility for doing so.”
Losing can also help to fire up Democratic voters who are led by a president with low approval ratings.
“From a political standpoint, frustration with these rulings can be used by Biden and the Democrats to galvanize voters in the midterms,” said Democratic strategist Tom Cochran. “When a conservative opposition is making headway, Democrats have something tangible to run or rally against.”
Republicans, on the other hand, criticize Biden’s increasingly hostile rhetoric toward the court, arguing it undermines confidence in the institution.
“The breadth of dishonesty from Biden and the Democrats when it comes to matters of the U.S. Supreme Court becomes more troubling by the day,” said Republican National Committee spokesman Nathan Brand. “Biden never personally condemned the assassination attempt on a Supreme Court Justice, Democrats continue to undermine the legitimacy of the court, and leaders in the party have even pushed for the dismantling of the court.”
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Even while liberals rail against the court’s decisions and call for votes that would eventually change its makeup, many are also accepting its rulings by calling on Congress to act and having executive agencies work within the powers now understood to be granted them.
“It’s time for the Senate to urgently pass President Joe Biden’s climate agenda,” the Center for American Progress’s senior vice president, Christy Goldfuss, said in a statement. “And if we want to still have a fighting chance of hitting the ambitious climate targets President Biden set at the beginning of his administration, this EPA will need to be bold in using its remaining authority to set stringent standards for pollution reduction. Our collective future depends on it.”
