Schumer Promises Year-End Judicial Push as Courts Gain New Political Importance

Pushing for an overhaul of the Supreme Court is a new priority as Democrats try to match Trump-era judicial confirmations, the Senate majority leader says.

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Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, has called the Supreme Court an “ethical morass.”

Senate Democrats are planning a new push this fall to make overhauling the nation’s courts a marquee political issue, preparing to press for ethics restrictions on Supreme Court justices and the reversal of some rulings while sprinting to confirm dozens of President Biden’s judicial nominees.

The campaign is a major reversal for Senate Democrats and Mr. Biden, who both resisted calls from progressives to embrace major changes to the courts early in the president’s term.

Now, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, argued that a string of recent disputed Supreme Court rulings and ethics questions — plus Mr. Biden’s new push for a court overhaul — have elevated the issue. The president’s decision to drop his re-election bid and the subsequent rally behind Vice President Kamala Harris, who has a background on judicial matters, as the party’s presumptive nominee have put even more urgency behind the effort.

“Making judicial reform, both ethically and substantively, is a much higher priority,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview as the Senate prepared to leave Washington for its August break and the Democratic convention in Chicago at the end of the month. “We’re going to look at everything.”

Mr. Schumer had already declared that he intended to explore legislative ways to reverse the court’s decision last month that granted presidential immunity for a range of official acts. On Thursday, he and about three dozen Democratic colleagues introduced what they called the No Kings Act, which would reaffirm that sitting presidents do not have immunity for violations of criminal law and remove the Supreme Court’s ability to review the constitutionality of the law.

Senate Democrats are also looking into whether they can impose term limits and ethical rules on the justices through statute rather than a constitutional amendment, an arduous pursuit that involves mustering supermajorities to pass in both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states.

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