(Headline USA) Senate Democrats, fresh off recent partywide discussions of court-packing and other desperate moves to swing the judiciary in their favor, launched an opening salvo in their effort to either control or discredit the collateral branch of government, fueling alarming questions about the separation of powers and the politicization of the American justice system under threat of coercion.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved legislation to impose a stronger ethics on the Supreme Court in response to a smear campaign waged by well-funded activist groups via the supposed investigative journalism site ProPublica and other left-wing outlets.
Until now, the court has assumed the role of establishing and policing its own ethics guidelines in the interest of maintaining political neutrality.
The bill faced united opposition from Republicans, who said it could “destroy” the court, and it has little chance to make it through the full Senate, much less the GOP-led House of Representatives.
The panel voted along party lines to set ethics rules for the court and a process to enforce them, including new standards for transparency around recusals, gifts and potential conflicts of interest.
Democrats first pushed the legislation after reports earlier this year that Justice Clarence Thomas participated in luxury vacations and a real estate deal with a top GOP donor—and after Chief Justice John Roberts declined to testify before the committee about the ethics of the court.
Since then, leftist media also revealed that Justice Samuel Alito had taken a luxury vacation with a GOP donor.
Neither of the conservative justices—nor Justice Neil Gorsuch, who likewise was targeted by a smear attack over a real-estate deal—technically violated the court’s ethics policies or reporting policies as they existed at the time of the alleged incidents. None of them are understood to have interfered with the justices’ judgement in cases that were before the court.
Indeed, it is likely that justices on both sides of the aisle adhered to similar practices, although activist groups selectively cherry-picked those of the court’s conservatives.
In an effort to appear evenhanded and lend cachet to the push for more ethics oversight, the Associated Press reported last week that left-wing Justice Sonia Sotomayor, aided by her staff, has advanced sales of her books through college visits over the past decade.
Sotomayor also failed to disclose at least six trips related to university speaking engagements. And liberal lion Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020, has come under recent scrutiny for a $1 million “prize” she accepted in December 2019 and distributed to a secret list of organizations.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., claimed the legislation would be a “crucial first step” in restoring confidence in the court. He said that if any of the senators sitting in the room had engaged in similar activities, they would be in violation of ethics rules.
“The same is not true of the justices across the street,” Durbin said.
Republicans charged that the legislation is more about Democratic opposition to the court’s decisions than its ethics.
“It’s about harassing and intimidating the Supreme Court,” said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a senior GOP member of the panel.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel, said Democrats were trying to “destroy” the court as it exists by tightening the rules around recusals and disqualifying conservatives from some decisions.
Congress should stay out of the court’s business and mind the separation of powers, Graham said.
The bill “is an assault on the court itself,” Graham said.
The legislation would mandate a new Supreme Court “code of conduct” with a process for adjudicating the policy modeled on lower courts that do have ethics codes.
It would require that justices provide more information about potential conflicts of interest, allow impartial panels of judges to review justices’ decisions not to recuse and require public, written explanations about their decisions not to recuse.
It would also seek to improve transparency around gifts received by justices and set up a process to investigate and enforce violations around required disclosures.
Republicans on the committee offered a series of amendments to the bill, some of which were focused on boosting security for judges after a man was found with a gun, knife and pepper spray near the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year. The panel rejected most of the amendments as majority Democrats said that Republicans were trying to distract from the ethics reforms.
Durbin pushed back on the notion that the legislation is about politics, noting he had introduced legislation on Supreme Court ethics reforms more than 10 years ago, when the court was more liberal. “The reforms we are proposing would apply in equal force to all justices,” Durbin said.
Durbin had recently invited Roberts to testify at a hearing, but he declined, saying that testimony by a chief justice is exceedingly rare because of the importance of preserving judicial independence.
Roberts also provided a “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices” signed by all nine justices that described the ethical rules they follow about travel, gifts and outside income.
The statement provided by Roberts said that the nine justices “reaffirm and restate foundational ethics principles and practices to which they subscribe in carrying out their responsibilities as Members of the Supreme Court of the United States.”
The statement promised at least some small additional disclosure when one or more among them opts not to take part in a case. But the justices have been inconsistent in doing so since.
Roberts has acknowledged that the court could do more to adhere to the highest standards of ethical conduct, but he didn’t elaborate and has not followed up publicly on that idea.
Besides Sotomayor’s push for book sales, the AP reported that universities have used trips by justices as a lure for financial contributions by placing them in event rooms with wealthy donors and that justices have taken expenses-paid teaching trips to attractive locations that are light on actual classroom instruction.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
