ProPublica was out with another hit piece on a conservative Supreme Court justice on Wednesday, this time against Justice Samuel Alito. He got ahead of it, though, as Katie covered. In predictable fashion, Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) announced a markup of "Supreme Court Ethics Reform Legislation" following the 4th of July recess. The press release made it a point to mention the ProPublica report in question.
For good measure, Durbin and Whitehouse released a statement to lament the "crisis."
Chief Justice Roberts could resolve this today, but he has not acted.
— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) June 21, 2023
The highest court in the land should not have the lowest ethical standards. But for too long that has been the case with the United States Supreme Court.
That needs to change.
I hope that before that time, Chief Justice Roberts will take the lead and bring Supreme Court ethics in line with all other federal judges.
— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) June 21, 2023
But if the Court won’t act, then Congress must.
The legislation in question, the Supreme Court Code of Conduct Act, was introduced in April by Sens. Angus King (I-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), neither of who are on the Judiciary Committee. It would require, among other things, the Supreme Court to create a code of conduct to be made available to the public.
Murkowski is the only Republican co-sponsor of the bill. For all the chatter from The Hill, Republicans who may or may not support it--members like Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)--it's still uncertain as to if the bill will earn the nine Republican votes to pass in the chamber.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is certainly not among those who support the bill. "Look, the Supreme Court, in my view, can’t be dictated to by Congress. I think the chief justice will address these issues. Congress should stay out of it, because we don’t, I think, have the jurisdiction to tell the Supreme Court how to handle the issue," he indicated on Wednesday. "I have total confidence in Chief Justice John Roberts to in effect look out for the court as well as its reputation," he also said.
While he says he supports the bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) curiously would not speak to bringing the bill to the floor. "I support their bill, it’s going to come out of Judiciary. Let’s see what happens there first," he told reporters, also on Wednesday.
Alito addressed the ProPublica report in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal. In response to another ProPublica report back in April about Justice Clarence Thomas, the Wall Street Journal also published an opinion piece heavily criticizing that report.
This latest development comes after Durbin had invited Chief Justice John Roberts in April to appear before the Committee on May 2 for a hearing on "Supreme Court Ethics Reform." The chief justice declined in a letter, highlighting how obscure the risk was and citing the separation of powers, effectively telling the chairman to stay in his lane. He also indicated that he had attached a statement of ethics that the current justices subscribe to.
That hearing did take place, during which Republican members highlighted at length how the left has viciously attacked the conservative justices, including and especially Thomas. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), in detailing the long history of such a partisan crusade, pointed to all the conservative justices, except for Amy Coney Barrett, had been the subject of smear campaigns from the media in recent weeks.
Liberal justices have had ethics concerns of their own, such as Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who failed to recuse herself from cases involving Penguin Random House, despite how she was paid $3 million by the publisher for her books. The media did not take a similar interest as they have in conservative justices, though.