President Joe Biden has announced three major judicial proposals. The first is to impose a binding code of ethics on the Supreme Court. The second is to limit future Supreme Court appointments to 18-year terms. And the third is to pass a new constitutional amendment:

Biden’s proposed amendment, which Biden is calling the “No One Is Above the Law Amendment,” states the “Constitution does not confer any immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction, or sentencing by virtue of previously serving as president.”

Each proposal addresses a recent concern with the Supreme Court. The Code of Ethics is necessary because members of the Court have not abided by the rules that apply to all lower federal courts. They haven’t reported gifts, or in some instances have been extremely tardy in reporting them. They also haven’t reliably recused themselves from cases where they had a clear conflict of interest. The result is a massive loss of confidence in the integrity of their decisions.

The 18-year limit addresses several issues from different angles. One is basically partisan, but seeks to redress the fact that Republicans essentially stole two lifetime seats from the Democrats. The first came when Antonin Scalia died in 2008 during President Obama’s last year in office and the Senate Republicans refused to consider Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland as a replacement. When Donald Trump became president, he filled the seat with Neil Gorsuch.

The second came when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died just before the 2020 election and the Republicans raced to replace her with Amy Coney Barrett during the lame duck portion of Trump’s one term in office. This truncated process for confirming Justice Barrett ignored all the reasons the GOP provided for why they couldn’t consider Garland to replace in Scalia.

The result was a 6-3 ultraconservative majority on the Court that has now overturned Roe v. Wade and gutted voting rights, affirmative action and the federal agencies’ ability to regulate the environment and the economy. It has also effectively declared the office of the presidency above the law. For these reasons, many progressives and Democrats have called on Biden to expand the Court to include 11 or 13 members, allowing a rebalancing of the ideological bent. Biden’s 18-year term limit comes at the problem from a less nakedly partisan angle. For starters, by doing away with lifetime appointments, it mitigates the problem of having an ethically compromised judge. If the reform had been in place when Clarence Thomas was confirmed, he would have left the Court in 2009. Justice Samuel Alito would have left the Court this year. It would also avoid the problem at least in some circumstances of a Justice serving longer than they really want to or should in the hope of being replaced by a president of their own party. To game the system in that way, they’d have to retire early, before the end of their term.

The last proposal is a constitution amendment made necessary by the aforementioned decision by the ultraconservative Supreme Court to transform the presidency into a lawless dictatorship where nothing the president does that can be considered even tangentially related to an “official act” is prosecutable as a crime.

In the short term, none of these proposals has a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming law. The Republicans will act defensively, seeing the proposals as direct rebukes of Donald Trump and their favorites on the Court. Of the three, the constitutional amendment might have the best chance of eventually gathering bipartisan support. Once the reform isn’t seen as a direct shot at Trump, the merits will become clearer to everyone regardless of party. A president should not be above the law.

The other reforms can pass through Congress alone, but would require Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, as a well as a Democratic president. Even then, the Democrats would need to get around the filibuster either by having a 60-seat majority, which seems like a long way off at the moment, or by changing the filibuster rule.

Maybe in time, the right will see the value in an enforceable Code of Ethics and term limits for the Supreme Court, but not until those reforms are no longer associated with criticisms of Thomas, Alito and the Republicans’ ill-gained 6-3 majority.

I do think all three proposals will be more popular than not with the American voter, so it’s good politics as well as sensible policy.