President Joe Biden, marking the the 60th anniversary of the landmark Civil Rights Act, which ended institutionalized segregation, used the historic parallel in Austin on Monday to call for sweeping reforms to the U.S. Supreme Court, including ending the constitutional provision that provides for lifetime appointments to the bench and proposing imposing a code of ethics on the nine justices.
In a 20-minute address interrupted several times by applause from the invited guests inside the LBJ Presidential Library, the president also called on Congress to enact legislation that would overturn the recent Supreme Court decision that grants former presidents immunity from prosecution for “official acts” during their time in the White House even if they break the law.
“This nation was founded on the principle there are no kings in America,” Biden said, as those in attendance erupted in applause. “No one is above the law.”
In a twice-delayed event at the library on the University of Texas campus, Biden vowed to do all he can in his time remaining in the White House to keep aloft and expand the principles of racial equality.
Biden’s keynote speech Monday was his first in-person address since internal turmoil in his campaign after a dismal performance during a presidential debate June 27 against former President Donald Trump ended with his withdrawal from the 2024 race — the first time in history that a candidate had left the race after winning the primaries. Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor at the top of the Democratic ticket with just over three months left before the Nov. 5 general election.
Ahead of his trip to Austin, the first of his presidency, Biden called for enacting a constitutional amendment to limit immunity for presidents, imposing term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices and stipulating an enforceable code of ethics for the high court. In an op-ed in The Washington Post, Biden stopped short of advocating to expand the Supreme Court from its nine members.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most sweeping civil rights legislation from Reconstruction to that point, was first proposed by President John Kennedy in 1963 as police violence against protesters, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., brought attention to discrimination across the U.S. After Kennedy’s assassination months later, President Lyndon Johnson pressed Congress hard to gather votes for the bill. He signed it July 2, 1964.
After signing the act, Johnson, a Democrat, told a longtime aide, “I think we’ve just delivered the South to the Republican Party for the rest of my life, and yours.”
The program Monday afternoon featured musical performances from Ruthie Foster and the concert choir of historically black Huston-Tillotson University. Actor Bryan Cranston read an excerpt of LBJ’s address to the nation on the signing of the Civil Rights Act.
Jennifer Lee, the Democratic nominee for Central Texas’ House District 55, which stretches from Temple to Killeen, attended the speech with her son, Brock.
“The civil rights movement is so incredibly important, and I’ve seen those rights being chipped away,” said Lee, who would be the first Black woman to represent the district and was excited to be running with Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket. “It’s definitely concerning, especially here in red state. And that is one of the issues that I do hope to address the Texas Legislature.”
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott did not comment directly on Biden’s remarks, but he did take the opportunity to deride POTUS’ policies regarding the Southern border, emphasizing that Biden would not be visiting the border during his time in Texas.
“Joe Biden & his Border Czar Kamala Harris can come all the way to Texas but not the border,” Abbott wrote on X. “Americans are waiting for them to take this national security crisis seriously.”
Calls for Supreme Court reform
Passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act was no small feat, as it faced resistance from Southern Democrats as well as conservative Republicans. The bill made it to LBJ’s desk more than a year after it was introduced and seven years after LBJ, as a U.S. senator, pushed the largely toothless Civil Rights Act of 1957 through Congress, setting the stage for the later legislation.
Biden drew on that parallel to call on federal lawmakers to begin working toward Supreme Court reforms, a moon shot. Progressive lawmakers in Congress have urged Biden to begin making such reforms for months; he first signaled the proposals to those same lawmakers in mid-July, The Washington Post reported.
In his speech, he referenced several recent Supreme Court decisions that rolled back voting rights, affirmative action admissions and abortion rights. Former President Donald Trump appointed three conservative justices during his term.
“Now, we live in a different era (from Johnson’s),” Biden said Monday. “In recent years, extreme opinions that the Supreme Court has handed down have undermined long-established civil rights principles and protections.”
Biden urged Congress and the nation to pass a constitutional amendment that would “make clear that there is no immunity for crimes committed while in office,” he wrote in his op-ed published Monday morning. The amendment would nullify the high court’s recent ruling that former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is immune from criminal prosecution for acts done in his official capacity, making it a long shot to clear the two-thirds majority it needs in both the Senate and the GOP-dominated House.
Biden is also seeking term limits and an enforceable code of ethics for Supreme Court justices, noting that the U.S. is “the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court” in Monday’s op-ed. He advocated for a system in which presidents appoint justices every two years to serve 18 years on the bench.
Both reforms would need to be confirmed by Congress, an unlikely prospect while the House maintains a GOP majority. The Senate has 51 Democrats but needs 60 votes to pass most measures.
The binding code of conduct Biden seeks would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest and penalize them for breaking the code, replacing a system of self-enforcement.
The call comes as Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have faced criticism over reports that Thomas accepted free travel from well-connected billionaires and Alito’s wife flew politically charged flags.
“As the press shouted to me before I boarded Air Force One” in Washington, Biden said, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said any bills proposing the high court reforms would be “dead on arrival” in the Republican-controlled House.
“His thinking is dead on arrival,” Biden said, drawing hearty applause.
Historic moments, historic parallels
Biden stood on the stage 10 years after his former running mate, President Barack Obama, said at LBJ Library that, as the first Black man to hold the country’s highest office, he had “lived out the promise of LBJ’s efforts.”
Obama also said in 2014 that he was a living contradiction to those who say “that nothing has changed, that racism is so embedded in our DNA that there is no use trying politics.”
Taking place just one week after endorsing Harris as his replacement, Biden’s speech evoked promises of another historic civil rights marker. Harris, who has already collected pledges from a majority of Democratic National Convention delegates, would be the first Black and South Asian woman to be nominated for president by a major political party.
Harris has signaled that, if elected, she will take the baton on the court reform proposal.
“These popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the court, strengthen our democracy and ensure no one is above the law,” Harris said in a statement from her campaign Monday.
Mark Updegrove, president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation, said Biden’s appearance marked another historic moment.”The walls of the LBJ Auditorium once again echo with history,” Updegrove said in his opening remarks for the event.Former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, who led protest campaigns that promoted the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, introduced Biden as a longtime friend, noting to the audience that Biden had to wait several days to start his term in the Senate because he was elected before his 30th birthday. “For the last 50 years, he has devoted himself to fulfilling the dreams of the American people, all of them — rich, poor, black, white, red, green, gay, straight, whatever we are,” Young said.
‘Stand up for their personal values’
Outside of the commemoration ceremony on UT’s campus, Esala Wueschner, a Travis County Republican Party precinct chair, reminded that Biden is not universally beloved.
“There’s a lot of people here in Austin, even Democrats, who don’t support Biden,” Wueschner said. “I’m here to give them courage to stand up for their personal values.”
For many attendees, however, the speech put a point on the achievements of Biden’s administration so far, including a sweeping bipartisan investment in infrastructure.
Biden is “one of the most consequential presidents of the last 30 years, even though he’s only been in office for one term,” said Jeremi Suri, a history professor at the University of Texas’ LBJ School of Public Affairs, who attended with his family. “I think his presidency is leaving a mark on this state and this country that few other presidencies have, and it’s wonderful to be here to reflect on that as a historian because this is a historical moment.”
Austin city council member Alison Alter, who attended the speech with Suri, who is her husband, and their daughter, said she views Supreme Court reform as “the next frontier for civil rights.”
“It’s very fitting that we mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act by beginning to take the next step,” Alter told the Statesman.
Biden ended his address Monday by paying homage to Johnson’s legacy and praising his family, including daughter Luci Baines Johnson, who was in attendance. And he offered a look back at America’s history, and then a look forward.
“In two years, we’ll commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence,” Biden told the crowd. “Imagine that moment and ask yourself, ‘What do we want to be?”
Statesman staff writers Hogan Gore, Lily Kepner and Cross Harris contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Biden visits Austin’s LBJ library to mark Civil Rights Act anniversary
