As promised, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) on Wednesday requested unanimous consent for a U.S. Supreme Court "ethics" bill sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). The move, as was largely expected, failed when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) objected. All three members sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, with Durbin serving as the chairman and Graham as the ranking member.
ALERT: Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC) blocks attempt by Senate Democrats to pass Supreme Court ethics legislation by unanimous consent https://t.co/yhrtRk4Pmf
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) June 12, 2024
Gifts, trips, flags, interviews, recusal refusals… and no action from Chief Justice Roberts.
— Senate Judiciary Committee (@JudiciaryDems) June 12, 2024
The Supreme Court’s ethics crisis is unacceptable.
WATCH: We’re bringing up a bill to require an enforceable code of conduct for all justices. https://t.co/0cxB734V5S
Other members of the Judiciary Committee, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), also spoke out against the bill. In doing so, he warned that the bill is a solution in search of a problem, and worse, "would itself create another problem for which there would be no solution." As he praised the judiciary, Lee warned that "that problem would in turn, turn one of our greatest strengths, an independent, functioning judicial system, one that has preserved the rule of law in this country for nearly two and a half centuries, into something of a more political animal," which is "not what we want, it's not what the Constitution contemplates, it's not what we've benefited from."
Lee also raised points about the motivation of bringing the bill. "Is there any great moral offense that's been committed? No. And is there any great violation of law that's been committed? No. Is there any violation of law that's been committed at all? No, there is not," the senator was clear on.
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"What we have here is something very, very cynical, and what we have is that people on the left have a couple of cases currently pending before the Supreme Court of the United States, cases that they're worried about the outcome, cases in which they're worried that certain justice might relate them. And they have some justices they don't like. They have some justices that they worry are going to reject the bad arguments that they've made in those cases," Lee explained. "And so, rather than double down on making sure that their arguments are good and that they're persuasive and recognizing that they're not going to win all cases, they're threatening, they're intimidating the justices."
The senator continued to warn that the Court's foes are "doing this specifically to harass, threaten, and intimidate certain members of the Supreme Court in order to influence the outcome of pending litigation. And make no mistake, that is what's going on here."
Lee also had warnings about what would happen, should such legislation come to pass. "They're trying to trigger more recusals, recusals of those justices they don't like. The legislation they're offering would create more problems than this would make it easier for them to trigger more recusals. This is not a good outcome. This is a political effort to influence the resolution of pending litigation before the Supreme Court of the United States, and to threaten justices that don't tow the woke line."
Leftists are trying to manipulate the Supreme Court and trigger the recusal of justices they don’t like.
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) June 12, 2024
They’re doing this in an effort to influence the outcome of cases pending before the Court.
That’s wrong. pic.twitter.com/DmTD32Gzxp
Not surprisingly, Durbin and Whitehouse took to their social media profiles to continue ranting and raving about such a move from Republicans, and about the Court overall.
They’d rather have a Supreme Court riddled with ethical lapses than institute a binding code that applies to every justice. https://t.co/0CLHQue1zt
— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) June 12, 2024
Whitehouse was posting about the outcome throughout Wednesday night and Thursday morning, including with a lengthy thread on the matter. Such a thread with nine posts long, though this isn't even his longest thread when it comes to speaking out against the Court.
Most of his posts were about Justice Samuel Alito, who he referred to at one point as "Commentator Alito," though he also went after Justice Clarence Thomas.
I’m not surprised. Republicans just shot down an effort to pass my Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act.
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) June 12, 2024
The highest court shouldn’t have the lowest ethics standards. What’s controversial about that?
I doubt that Justices Thomas or Alito would put up with arguments of the quality and veracity of their own arguments about their own ethics issues. They stand out for their inadequacy and unverifiability.
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) June 13, 2024
🧵
As one of the decisions released on Thursday morning, the Court issued a unanimous ruling that pro-abortion Democrats agreed with, which is that the dangerous abortion pill must remain accessible, given that the pro-life doctors who brought the case were seen as not having standing.
Even still, Democrats' reactions were mixed.
The Supreme Court made the right decision today in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.
— Senate Judiciary Committee (@JudiciaryDems) June 13, 2024
A group of anti-abortion activists has NO STANDING to deny women access to safe, effective, FDA-approved medications.
While the Supreme Court made the right decision today, let’s be honest:
— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) June 13, 2024
Radical right-wing judges and extremist Republicans will still try to strip women of their reproductive freedoms.
We will fight back.
The motivation as to why Senate Democrats would look to pull such a stunt now, as fake controversies, especially to do with the Alito, has to do with other decisions still to come, and ones Democrats will not like.
When it comes to Lee's points from the Senate floor, Durbin and Whitehouse indeed called on Alito to recuse himself from cases to do with the 2020 election and January 6, after hit pieces from The New York Times were published last month indicating the Alitos flew an upside down flag and an "Appeal to Heaven" flag on their properties in past years. Alito refused to recuse himself.
Curt Levey, who has spoken to Townhall before about such tactics from Senate Democrats, has reminded that they're "trying to discredit in advance" such decisions they won't like. Durbin's "simply making a statement and trying to remind people he thinks the ethics of the Supreme Court are iffy and he’s doing it because he expects in the next few weeks there are going to be big Supreme Court decisions Democrats are not going to like," Levey added.
He had also warned that "you can bet that [Democrats] will do everything in their power to try to question the integrity and legitimacy of the court between now and over the next month" when the topic of Alito being called upon to recuse came up, adding "the goal here is not really to make Alito recuse himself, but undermine the credibility and legitimacy of the Court."
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