AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
- Joe Biden said he’d create a bipartisan commission to study court reform, if he wins the presidential election.
- The former vice president has refused to endorse recent Democratic calls to expand the size of the Supreme Court.
- “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,” Biden told CBS News in an interview that will air on Sunday.
- Many Democrats are pushing to pack the court as Republicans are poised to confirm President Donald Trump’s third Supreme Court pick just days before Nov. 3.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden, who’s refused to endorse recent Democratic calls to expand the size of the Supreme Court, said he’ll create a bipartisan commission to study court reform if elected president.
“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,” Biden told CBS News in a “60 Minutes” interview scheduled to air on Sunday.
As Republicans are poised to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court just days before the election, progressive advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers across the ideological spectrum have escalated calls to pack the high court.
But in the past, Biden has rejected the idea of adding seats to the court to dilute the power of the sitting justices.
In the CBS News interview, Biden warned that court packing alone could “turn the Supreme Court into just a political football.” He was vague about what reforms he’s interested in exploring, but said they’d “go well beyond packing.”
"The way in which it's being handled, and it's not about court packing, there's a number of other things that our constitutional scholars have debated and I've looked to see what recommendations that commission might make," Biden said.