Senate Republicans Reject Democrats’ Supreme Court Ethics Reform

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee warned Wednesday that Democrats are trying to destroy the Supreme Court by advancing ethics reform legislation.

The panel is scheduled to vote Thursday on legislation that would require justices on the high court to adopt a code of conduct with a mechanism to probe alleged violations. Republicans are vowing to wage war over the measure.

“Tomorrow will be one hell of a fight,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon regarding the bill Democrats have dubbed the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act.

The proposal from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., would also require improved disclosure and transparency around cases in which a justice is connected to someone with business before the court, as well as require justices to publicly explain their decisions to recuse themselves from cases.

Graham, the top Republican on the committee, panned the legislation as “fundamentally, constitutionally flawed,” cautioning that it “should make every American afraid.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said she plans to introduce an amendment that would increase penalties on people who try to intimidate, threaten, assault or influence Supreme Court justices and their voting decisions. Her amendment deals directly with Democratic protests outside justices’ homes and an assassination attempt on Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Senate Republicans said the ethics reform bill violates the separation of powers by giving Congress authority over a co-equal branch of government, which they believe should police itself. They also argue that Democrats are essentially lashing out at conservative justices because they don’t agree with their rulings.

“This effort to smear the courts is not about oversight or accountability,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said. “It’s about outcomes that they don’t like.”

Grassley noted that the high court has taken steps to improve disclosure requirements after a barrage of reporting called into question the ethics of justices who’ve accepted luxury vacations and lavish gifts without reporting them.

“This discussion of ethics — so-called ethics — is a fraud,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said. “What we are witnessing right now from Senate Democrats is an organized, concerted, deliberate effort to smear, to try to delegitimize and to try to destroy the Supreme Court.”

More liberal Democrats have promoted ideas such as court-packing, expanding the court from nine to 13 justices, to tilt the court’s conservative lean closer to the center.

At the news conference, GOP senators spoke alongside poster boards highlighting explosive rhetoric from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who said in March 2020 that Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch had “released the whirlwind” and would “pay the price."

They also featured Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who vowed last June to “defy” the court and said, “To hell with the Supreme Court.”

ProPublica has reported that Justice Samuel Alito accepted luxury travel on a private jet with hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, who has asked the court repeatedly to rule in his favor. The publication has also reported on decades of undisclosed luxury travel Justice Clarence Thomas has taken from GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, who has paid Thomas in a real estate deal and paid private school tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., called the legislation “dead as fried chicken.” He questioned why Democrats would risk crossing a line when the measure lacks enough votes to pass the Senate and would go nowhere in the Republican-controlled House.

“Why beat the living crap out of the United States Supreme Court?” he asked. “I just don’t get it. I understand politics, but I just don’t get it.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who has a reputation for working across the aisle, predicted “political theater” will be on display at the committee meeting Thursday.

“It’s a waste of time,” Tillis said, and “particularly insulting to those of us like Sen. Graham, myself and others who’ve worked on a bipartisan basis on nominations, on bills of substance.”

Tillis and Graham, however, were among the minority of Senate Republicans willing to concede that the Supreme Court needs to take some action to address its ethics issues. Still, Graham insisted Congress should have no role in that process.

“This is a line nobody should want to cross,” he said. “The bill is going nowhere. And I told Sen. Durbin: ‘I’m trying to work with you the best I can. We’ve done a lot of good things.’ But this is going to affect the operation of the committee down the road.”

“This makes it less likely for the committee to function,” he added, “because one part of the committee is trying to destroy the court in a way that’s constitutionally laughable and scary.”

In a floor speech earlier Wednesday, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said any senator who “failed to report an all-expense paid luxury getaway” or “used our government staff to help sell books we wrote — we’d be in big trouble.”

“They are the most powerful judges in the entire nation, and yet they are not required to follow even the most basic ethical standards,” said Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and chair of the Judiciary Committee. “It’s time for that to change.”