The growing ethics scandals at the U.S. Supreme Court should alarm all Americans – but they are only a portion of the deep problems besetting America’s judicial branch.
The court’s eagerness to force far-right policies on America is not just unpopular but corrosive to our constitutional order.
Ruthless Republican court-packing has built a highly partisan court that is not representative of America and hasn’t been in a long time.
These problems make clear the need for court reform. And Congress must take the lead.
The cascade of stories about Justice Clarence Thomas is dizzying. Thomas has received a series of trips, gifts, and other benefits from a shadowy billionaire. The benefactor paid Thomas’ relative’s school tuition and even bought Thomas’ mother’s house. Thomas also secretly accepted backdoor payments from a right-wing lobbyist.
Thomas was elevated to the High Court in 1991 after being accused of pervasive sexual harassment. More recently, his wife worked to overturn the 2020 election results while Thomas himself continued to participate in election cases – a staggering conflict of interest.
Thomas isn’t alone. Last week, a report found that Justice Neil Gorsuch sold a large property to the head of a powerful law firm days after joining the court – and never reported that.
The court’s cloud of corruption cannot be separated from how its composition came to be. In 2017, Gorsuch was installed after Senate Republicans blocked President Barack Obama from filling an open seat for nearly a year.
In 2020, days before the presidential election, Republicans rushed Amy Coney Barrett onto the court to prevent President Biden from making the selection.
Between the two, Brett Kavanaugh was jammed onto the bench after being very credibly accused of sexual assault. Moreover, the public still does not know who paid off Kavanaugh’s reported $200,000 in credit card debt.
In sum, five of the six members of the court’s conservative bloc were appointed by Republican presidents who lost the popular vote. Yet, despite coming to their majority through narrow Electoral College victories and political chicanery, the court has governed from the extreme right and against broad public opinion.
The destruction of Roe v. Wade overturned half a century of settled law and opened the floodgates to Republican laws that threaten women’s freedom everywhere. The justices’ evisceration of the Voting Rights Act has allowed Republican state legislatures to expand gerrymandering and poison fair elections.
Recent decisions have flooded our streets with more gun violence, greenlit polluters and hamstrung labor unions. The legal basis for these holdings is tortured at best; at worst, the justices simply impose their own personal and political beliefs and then create legal justification.
Essentially, Republicans have turned the court into an unelected legislature to impose toxic policies Republicans can’t win at the ballot box.
The justices have made clear they will make no changes to ethics rules or to their radical legal approach.
When Chief Justice John Roberts was recently invited to testify before the Senate on the corruption scandals, he refused. The contemptuous public statements from Justice Samuel Alito about the court’s future plans show they plowing forward to more dangerous decisions.
With lifetime appointments, the justices appear to think they’re above it all. If the court won’t alter course, as the Article I branch, Congress can impose changes.
To start, I support enshrining a code of ethics for the justices for the first time. I am co-sponsoring two bills to enact clear standards on transparency and recusals for the justices.
But I would go further.
Most Americans are surprised to learn the majority of Supreme Court justices have been Republican appointees since June 1970, despite Democrats winning the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. Of the last 20 Supreme Court appointments, just four were made by Democrats.
The court should be balanced to undo decades of Republican court-packing. That’s why I’m a cosponsor of the Judiciary Act to expand the court from nine to 13 justices. New justices will bring fresh perspectives to reinvigorate the Constitution and better reflect America in 2023.
Court expansion may be the only way to fix the judiciary. The size of the court is not set by the Constitution but simple statute. It has been done before and should be again.
Above the doors to the Supreme Court are chiseled the words “Equal Justice Under Law.” Amid dangerously disconnected decision-making and outright corruption, the Supreme Court is not living up to this promise.
If the justices won’t set their own rules, Congress must step in to protect democracy.
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