With Inauguration Day set for Monday, the nation is poised to turn the page on four years under President Joe Biden, a fact that has prompted a host of reflections on what was accomplished – or not – during his term in office.
As Reuters reports, one of the least impressive aspects of Biden's presidency is the manner in which his agenda -- and many liberal policy shibboleths -- faced repeated and strong rebuke at the U.S. Supreme Court, on issues ranging from abortion to student loan forgiveness.
To be sure, the conservative court majority solidified during Donald Trump's first term in office put Biden at a disadvantage when it came to matters coming before the justices in recent years, but the sheer number of defeats suffered by the president garnered significant attention.
Perhaps most staggering to Biden's supporters on the left was the high court's 2022 decision to overturn the precedent set in the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, an outcome that sent the issue of abortion back to the respective states.
2022 also saw the court ruling in a manner that substantially expanded gun rights in the United States, a decision that has prompted the reversal of a series of state-level limitations on the Second Amendment, much to the chagrin of liberals everywhere.
The administration went down to defeat in 2023, when race-conscious college admissions were invalidated by the justices, an undeniable blow to the culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion championed by Biden and his allies.
Biden also suffered an embarrassing rejection when his campaign promise-driven plan to forgive billions of dollars in student loan debt went down to defeat at the high court, adding to the list of policy positions thwarted during the course of the president's Oval Office tenure, a time also characterized by the Supreme Court's reversal of the Chevron doctrine of deference to administrative agencies, a concept long revered by liberals.
The staggering number of losses sustained by the Biden administration at the Supreme Court did not escape the notice of numerous legal scholars who spoke to Reuters about the outgoing president's legacy in this regard.
University of California Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky opined, “I think it is the toughest series of defeats since Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s had many New Deal programs declared unconstitutional.”
Having served as a Department of Justice lawyer during George W. Bush's time in office, John Yoo offered his own, unique take on the losses suffered by Biden in recent years.
“It's hard to think of another president in our lifetimes who lost so many high-profile cases on issues so near and dear to his constitutional agenda,” Yoo said.
Yoo suggested that the administration stubbornly refused to change its approach when the majority justices evinced their preference for an originalist approach to cases, and it therefore “rendered itself irrelevant on the most important constitutional questions of the day.”
Biden himself took aim at the trends seen among the justices, declaring the institution “not a normal court” and a body he said was responsible for “extreme opinions that...have undermined long-established civil rights principles and protections.”
However, as he leaves office, a USA Today/Suffolk University poll suggests that the lion's share of Americans may either agree with the high court's frequent rebukes of Biden or at least realize his administration's inability to prevail before the justices, with 44% of respondents labeling him a “failed president,” and just 26% calling him either good or great -- a damning verdict no matter how you slice it.
