Biden: Promises Kept / Promises Broken: on Government Reform

Joe Biden: Biden administration officially backs statehood for DC

Twitter posting @JoeBiden (Jun 25, 2020): "DC should be a state. Pass it on."

PROMISE KEPT: (WTOP News, 4/20/21): "The Administration strongly supports H.R. 51, the Washington D.C. Admission Act. For far too long, the more than 700,000 people of Washington, D.C. have been deprived of full representation in the U.S. Congress. This taxation without representation and denial of self-governance is an affront to the democratic values on which our Nation was founded," the White House said in a statement.

ANALYSIS: The bill would have to pass the House AND the Senate, but President Biden has kept his promise insofar as publicly supporting the effort as president.

Joe Biden: Commission of experts to decide on expanding Supreme Court

PROMISE KEPT: (White House press release, 4/9/21): President Biden will issue an executive order forming the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court, comprised of a bipartisan group of experts on the Court and the Court reform debate. The Commission's purpose is to provide an analysis of Supreme Court reform, including an appraisal of the merits and legality of particular reform proposals, within 180 days of its first public meeting.

ANALYSIS: The proposed reform, which critics call "court packing," would be to add 4 Supreme Court seats, to change the current 6-3 conservative majority to a 7-6 liberal majority.

Joe Biden: Make it easier for overseas and federal employees to vote

PROMISE PARTLY KEPT: (NBC News, 3/7/21): Biden's order calls on federal agencies to "consider ways to expand citizens' opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process," make it easier for federal employees to vote by recommending how to "expand the federal government's policy of granting employees time off to vote" and increase access to the ballot for voters with disabilities, Native Americans, overseas Americans and eligible federal prisoners.

OnTheIssues ANALYSIS: There is only so much Biden can do by executive order; he has promised to sign H.R. 1--an election reform bill--if it passes the Senate.

Joe Biden: Daily press briefings for White House, State Dept., and DOD

PROMISE KEPT: (Albany Times Union, 2/22/21): White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has made her goals very clear: help the public trust the government, set up a better press shop than former presidents Donald J. Trump or Barack Obama and get out of the post in about a year. Since her first daily press briefing on Inauguration Day, she's delivered President Joe Biden's plans with few obvious stumbles.

OnTheIssues ANALYSIS: The State Department and Defense Department have also restored daily press briefings as of February 2021.