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The Supreme Court Control Act

The Supreme Court has finished its business for the summer, but Senate Democrats never finish trashing the Justices. The Judiciary Committee that scoured Brett Kavanaugh’s high-school yearbook is preparing to pass new rules under the guise of ethics reform that are intended to put the Justices on a political leash.

The effort is led by Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D) and his more senior political front man, Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin. They’re playing off recent media reports that claim ethics violations without showing any real violations. But that’s enough of an excuse for claiming to want to protect the Court’s reputation while actually destroying it.

Their Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act would require the Court to establish a Code of Conduct within 180 days. It would also set disclosure rules for “gifts, income, and reimbursements required to be disclosed under the Standing Rules of the Senate and the Rules of the House of Representatives.”

Treating judges like Members of Congress is exactly the wrong model to follow. The nine Justices are appointees with lifetime tenure under the Constitution in order to insulate them from political pressure. Legislators are political actors accountable to voters for their relationships with campaign contributors and interest groups.

The Senate ethics scheme would drop the Justices into a new political maelstrom. The bill invites ethics complaints alleging that a Justice violates the new rules or “has otherwise engaged in conduct that undermines the integrity of the Supreme Court.” That open-ended standard is an invitation to groups on the left and right to file endless complaints against the Justices to create the appearance of wrongdoing or conflicts of interest.

The complaints would be handled by a five-member panel of chief judges from the circuit courts. That would further politicize the judiciary by asking lower-court judges to rule on the ethics of Justices who decide whether to hear appeals of their rulings. The judges would be under enormous pressure to act against Justices with a different judicial philosophy.

The bill also lays out “circumstances requiring disqualification” to hear a case—more commonly known as recusal. The Justices currently make their own decisions on recusal based on relatively narrow criteria such as whether they have a financial interest in a case. Political demands for recusal are becoming more common, but most can be ignored.

The Senate bill sets up a process for a three-judge panel of judges to review a “motion” by a party for recusal. Such motions would proliferate, as the parties and interests angle to eliminate a Justice they think might rule against them. The Democratic goal here is thinning the Court on a case by case basis to influence decisions. It’s a different means than packing the Court by adding Justices, but the purpose is similar.

The Founders anticipated this political temptation, which is why they created the judiciary as a separate and co-equal branch of government under Article III. While Congress established the lower federal courts, the Constitution created the Supreme Court, which sets its own rules. Congress has no constitutional power to tell the Justices how to run the Court.

The supposed justification for this radical remaking of the Court is a series of media articles that reveal little more than that Justices have rich friends. They have on occasion even flown on private jets, oh my. In the latest supposed scandal, the staff of Justice Sonia Sotomayor is reported to have encouraged the sale of her books coinciding with her appearances at universities. In none of these cases has anyone found a real conflict of interest involving the Justices and a case or ruling.

The partisan nature of this exercise is clear from the one-sided efforts at fact-finding. Last week Messrs. Whitehouse and Durbin sent a letter to Leonard Leo, who advised President Trump on judicial nominations and is friends with some of the conservative Justices.

The letter requests “an itemized list of all gifts, payments, and items of value . . . to any Justice of the Supreme Court or a member of the Justice’s family which you had a role in facilitating or arranging.” We could find no evidence of similar curiosity about the liberal Justices and their friends.

Damaging the Court has been Mr. Whitehouse’s explicit goal since progressives lost their majority and the Court as a second legislature. In 2019 he and four other Senate Democrats wrote a notorious amicus brief in a gun-rights case that said “the Supreme Court is not well.” The brief threatened, mob-style, that if the Court didn’t “heal itself,” it might have to be “restructured.”

Democrats don’t currently have the votes to break the Senate filibuster and pack the Court, but watch out when they do. Meantime, their ethics ruse is an attempt to intimidate and control the Justices by other means. It deserves to be called out as a betrayal of the Constitution that would destroy judicial independence.

I would hope that the Chief Justice, and all Associate Justices of the Supreme Court would issue a unanimous opinion detailing the 'Separation of Powers' as provided in the US Constitution, and 'so ordering' the Legislative Branch to FUCK OFF!

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Their Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act would require the Court to establish a Code of Conduct within 180 days. It would also set disclosure rules for “gifts, income, and reimbursements required to be disclosed under the Standing Rules of the Senate and the Rules of the House of Representatives.”

Would that apply to Sotomayor's book sales?

So every time the opposite party has control of the Senate they will pack the court. So my question is how many justices can the Supreme Court have.

Does each side keep doing it till the court becomes unable to function?

Does this mean it is okay with the party in charge as long as they rule in their favor, but if they don't they will some how punish them.

Is this not the reason we have 3 equal branches of Government so no one branch can become to powerful.

If the congress were to pass a law and someone were to challenge it in through out the court system wouldn't the Supreme Court have the final say in a ruling.

This reminds me of the way children act when they do not get their way.

Yeah...just keep packing the court until it winds up with 37 justices and any time a case is presented before the court, a lottery will be drawn to see which 9 are gonna hear a case. Kinda like how they're doing it in the lower Federal District Courts...

Or...OR...how 'bout this?? Just leave it the F*CK alone!!!!

This effort is DOA:

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Originally posted by HRK:
The Founders anticipated this political temptation, which is why they created the judiciary as a separate and co-equal branch of government under Article III. While Congress established the lower federal courts, the Constitution created the Supreme Court, which sets its own rules. Congress has no constitutional power to tell the Justices how to run the Court.

[Emphasis added]

It's pretty clear the Democrats have one goal, total rule.

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This reminds me of the way children act when they do not get their way.

No one commenting in this thread is new here.

This seems to be pure political posturing, personally not too worried the usual suspects are hyperventilating. (And, if something like this did pass, is it all that hard to imagine how a court challenge to it would proceed/wind up/be resolved? )

That said, if push ever were to come to shove, how do the Supremes get funds to run? Does their budget need Congress or the Administration to approve and/or appropriate money for their operations, or are they somehow outside that mechanism?

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

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Their Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act would require the Court to establish a Code of Conduct within 180 days. It would also set disclosure rules for “gifts, income, and reimbursements required to be disclosed under the Standing Rules of the Senate and the Rules of the House of Representatives.”

Would that apply to Sotomayor's book sales?

They never think about what could happen if the other party takes control and uses their stupid rules against them.

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Originally posted by 71 TRUCK:
This reminds me of the way children act when they do not get their way.

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Originally posted by ensigmatic:
This effort is DOA:

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
The Founders anticipated this political temptation, which is why they created the judiciary as a separate and co-equal branch of government under Article III. While Congress established the lower federal courts, the Constitution created the Supreme Court, which sets its own rules. Congress has no constitutional power to tell the Justices how to run the Court.

[Emphasis added]

We here all agree that the commies clearly want to pack SCOTUS for political reason. But, with that out of the way, can all you brilliant minds tell me what can legally prevent the scumbags from doing so, when it reaches the point where they have total power, say, a filibuster-proof majority. Obviously, IANAL, but I occasionally play one on SF.

Article III, Section 1 of the US Constitution states:
"The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office."

So, Congress may create lower federal courts, and the only one SCOTUS was already established by the Constitution. But, nowhere does it say Congress cannot alter the number of Justices in SCOTUS. And Sections 2 and 3 say nothing relevant, either.

In fact, there have been a few occasions in the history of the country when Congress has passed laws to change the number of SCOTUS Justices. From Wiki (as of 7/18/2023):

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Since 1789, Congress has occasionally altered the size of the Supreme Court, historically in response to the country's own expansion in size. An 1801 act would have decreased the Court's size to five members upon its next vacancy. However, an 1802 act negated the effects of the 1801 act upon the Court before any such vacancy occurred, maintaining the Court's size at six members. Later legislation increased its size to seven members in 1807, to nine in 1837, and to ten in 1863. An 1866 act was to have reduced the Court's size from ten members to seven upon its next three vacancies, and two vacancies did occur during this period. However, before a third vacancy occurred, the Judiciary Act of 1869 intervened, restoring the Court's size to nine members, where it has remained ever since.[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...of_the_United_States

Packing the court does nothing to disincentivize the current justices from still doing what they think is right. They can't be fired, they don't lose a dime of pay. Adding more justices just means adding office space, staff, salaries, etc. That's no skin off the current nine justices' noses. Are they supposed to be scared and thus change their minds?