Ro Khanna argues ‘regressive’ Supreme Court rulings show court must be overhauled

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) reupped his calls to reform the Supreme Court after the high court made three rulings this week striking down student loan forgiveness, ruling businesses can reject LGBTQ customers and banning affirmative action in college admissions.

“This is a court that is out of touch, with attacks on modern life,” Khanna argued in an interview with The Guardian shared on Saturday. “It’s a court that is regressive, that is rolling back women’s rights, rolling back rights about racial equality, rolling back environmental protections, rolling back now assistance for young people.”

“And it’s exactly why we need term limits on these supreme court justices,” he added.

Khanna, a member of the House Progressive Caucus, has long advocated for measures to completely cancel federal student loan debt, a move far beyond what President Biden attempted to do with the plan shut down by the court.

He is now celebrating signals from the Biden administration that student loan forgiveness will return via a program rooted in different law, with hopes that the new method could survive a legal challenge.

“I am very glad that President Biden is not giving up the fight to cancel student debt and plans to invoke the Higher Education Authority Act,” Khanna said. “I urge him to be bold and do everything in his power to deliver relief – we cannot abandon young people now.”

On Friday, Khanna and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) announced the reintroduction of a bill in the House that would place an 18-year term limit on Supreme Court justices.

“For many Americans, the Supreme Court is a distant, secretive, unelected body that can make drastic changes in their lives without any accountability,” Beyer said in a statement. 

A poll last year found that about two-thirds of Americans would support term limits for court justices.

Khanna said that “everything should be on the table” for Supreme Court reform, including expanding the court. In an interview Friday, Biden said that he is adamantly against that idea.

“I think it’s a mistake,” Biden said on MSNBC. “If we do start the process of expanding the court, we’re going to politicize it maybe forever in a way that is not healthy.”