Supreme Court Ethics Bill Passes Committee over 100% Republican Opposition

Although I agree with this bill, the NYT calling it “strict new ethics rules” is a bit much. Reading the requirements in the bill itself, it struck me as legislating that SCOTUS justices do the bare ethical minimum required of most every other judge - in other words, it’s the type of bill that shows up when an organization demonstrates that it is incapable of self-policing.

What’s shocking is 100% opposition by Republicans to a bill requiring a Justice to recuse if a close family member receives a large gift from a litigant - literally, that’s in the bill.

How is this controversial? Senator Graham says why - requiring the court to act ethically will “destroy” the court. He’s saying, we don’t care if justices are ethical so long as they’re partisan.

Congress needs to step up here.

conditional_soup,

Legislators should have to wear NASCAR-style suits with patches from their sponsors on them.

They all opposed this because it makes it harder for their donors to sway the court, and their donors obviously wouldn’t appreciate that.

PenguinJuice,

Bribery needs to be illegal. Money is not speech.

TrontheTechie,

Money isn’t speech because me buying crack isn’t protected by the constitution. If I can’t do illegal things with my money why can they?

Edit: forgive the over simplification

DarthBueller,

It is an oversimplification. The supreme court distinguishes between nonverbal acts that are political speech, and acts that are just acts. It’s not the money, it is the act of giving the money. Just like burning the flag is political speech. I’m not saying that Citizens United is correct, or that we are on the right path. Even if we had a honest acting Supreme Court ready to fix everything, they’d have to tread carefully to avoid fucking everything up.

TrontheTechie,

That doesn’t fit on a t-shirt. /s

If burning a flag is political protest, why not burning crack into your lungs? It’s political speech to protest the government and its world wide drug war!

P.S. Stay away from crack and coke, dopamine exhaustion is real and fucked

dhork,

Democrats conceded the legislation could not pass the current Senate, where it would need 60 votes, and has no prospects in the Republican-controlled House. But they said the debate would focus attention on ethics issues on the Supreme Court and could build momentum for future action by Congress.

Republicans oppose it because that what they do. Chuck could say that it was sunny outside and Lindsay would make a show of bring an umbrella just out of spite.

In an environment like this, when very little can actually get done, sometimes activity like this is done to set the stage for the next thing. Democrats will campaign on this to sell voters on the idea that the Supreme Court is out of touch and unaccountable, and Republicans are standing in the way of changes. And if the Democrats win majorities in both houses in this election, I fully expect them to nuke the filibuster to pack the court.

My preferred method would be to slam in expansion to 13 on Day 1, effective in a years’ time. And then after signing it, Biden can go to Republicans and say “You have a choice: you can work with us to reform the court via amendment: institute ethics requirements, term limits, privledged status for appointments in the Senate, and efforts to make the Court less of a political football and more accountable. Or, you can leave things as they are, I will appoint 4 young judges to lifetime appointments and you can gamble on having both the Presidency and Senate control to appoint any more.”

Because you know that if the Presidency and Senate are controlled by different parties from now on, the Senate Leader will invoke the “McConnell Rule” to ignore the appointment entirely. In fact, this can be used as a justification to go to 13, because Democrats can argue that the Court will often have vacancies, because the Senate Majority leader has a permanent veto on filling the seat.

profdc9,

I think the republicans would accept Supreme Court reform because they would count on the Supreme Court justices to declare the reforms unconstitutional citing separation of powers. I just don’t see any option besides packing the court.

dhork,

If an amendment is passed, that settles the matter permanently. You can’t call something unconstitutional if it’s in the plain text.

Conservative states would never sign on to an amendment on their own, that’s why you couple it with packing the court. Not passing the amendment means any new justices get the same lifetime appointments the current ones enjoy.

Republicans like getting their way by manufacturing deadlines like the dumb debt ceiling thing. Maybe Democrats should give them a taste of their own medicine.

chinpokomon,

It should put the question to bed, but there are plenty of examples where something in the Constitution needs to be interpreted for intent, by the SCOTUS.

shalafi,

Democrats won’t even talk 13, they don’t have the gumption. “Oh, but the optics!” I don’t give a damn about optics anymore. One side is fighting as low down as they can go, while the other is like, “Let’s work together and not offend anyone.”

Look, I loved Obama, but this high-road crap has to end.

himbocat,

It’s like a boxing match where the republicans pull a knife out of their glove before the round starts and the democrats just pat themselves on the back while congratulating themselves on the clean match they’re about to have.

AncientFutureNow,

TO HELL WITH PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE! 🤣

soulifix,

I fully expect them to nuke the filibuster to pack the court.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but nuking the filibuster would end up working both ways, wouldn’t it? If there’s no filibuster, then if Republicans are somehow in control, they’d get by just as much with no resistance in passing laws than if Democrats did because there’d be no opposition, right?

If true, I am almost under the impression that no filibuster is actually a bad idea.

dhork,

Recall why the Filibuster exists in the first place: it’s a call to end debate and get on with voting. If there is majority support to pass something, why should we need a supermajority to vote on it?

SeedyOne,

Can we get you on a committee or something? Thanks for that perspective.

fidelacchius,

Paywall article. Fake news.

Athena5898,

I'd love to be wrong. But i dont think this bill will do anything.

Silverseren,

Agreed. It's basically requiring the most minimum of ethical guidelines possible. Which one would expect that Supreme Court justices would already have to follow.

It's a shame for the entire United States that this sort of law is needed to make sure the justices are even meeting this minimum ethical line.

harpuajim,

It’s too bad we can’t dig up any dirt on the liberal justices so that this could be a bi-partisan bill. Either the liberal justices are excellent at hiding their corruption or it’s just the conservative judges who are taking these bribes. My money is on the latter.

wagoner,

“It’s too bad” everyone is not corrupt?

Also, the Republicans spent decades buying this court, and nothing - not even what you suggest - would make them put any constraints on it.

teuast,

i feel like their comment was largely tongue-in-cheek

mosiacmango,

The GOP tried to “both sides” by pointing out the liberal justices took small, nomial fees and hotel stays when giving speeches to law students at colleges. Somehow it didnt line up to “a taking expensive vacation’s with a billionaire donor in your party on their private jets when they have cases before the court (alito)” or “taking expensives vacations with a gop billionaree that also bought your moms home and has let her live in it rent free for decades (thomas)” or " your wife making millions from “consulting” at GOP think tanks (thomas/roberts)."

So they shifted to “whatever. Its cool when our guys do it.”

shalafi,

Comparisons need not be fair. They just need to get it out there and it works. I don’t know how many times I’ve been discussing politics IRL when someone says, “Yeah, but the liberals do it to! Look at this!”

My favorite:

“Are you seriously conflating protests over racial discrimination with a takeover of our nation’s Capital in an attempt to overthrow the government?!”

“They’re the same.”

teuast,

“Our side may have tried to violently overturn a fair election and install a fascist dictator in an insurrection that killed five people, but your side holds protests against racially-motivated police violence and some of those protests led to property damage, and that’s where I draw the line!”

SoleInvictus,
@SoleInvictus@lemmy.world avatar

Damn, you got that one right in the bullseye.

cantstopthesignal,

My personal conspiracy theory is that Scalia died of a heart attack banging a hooker on that billionaire’s ranch.

dondelelcaro,

The most serious thing I heard of was Sotomayor’s staff intimating to universities bringing the Justice in to speak hadn’t purchased enough copies of her book.

Can’t wait for the calls of “But her books!”

chakan2,
@chakan2@lemmy.world avatar

What happens when the Supreme Court decides these are unconstitutional?

MaxVoltage,
@MaxVoltage@lemmy.world avatar

they become the senate

Pokethat,

Congress makes the laws, president approves, the SC can only interpret.

chakan2,
@chakan2@lemmy.world avatar

Lol…the SC does whatever the fuck they want. Precedent means nothing these days.

danc4498,

Voters need to step up too!

MaxVoltage,
@MaxVoltage@lemmy.world avatar

cant vote we got rights taken away

chakan2,
@chakan2@lemmy.world avatar

We did…we lost 52-48. Welcome to politics.

milkjug,
@milkjug@lemmy.world avatar

Its impressive, if not downright mortally-depressing, that 48% of voters saw what transpired between 2016 to 2020 and said to themselves, “fuck yeah let’s have another four years of this!”

BurnTheRight,

There is no such thing as "good conservatism" in any amount. Every act of racism, misogyny, bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia and antisemitism comes from conservatives. Yet nothing good in history has ever come from conservatism.

Conservatism should be openly called out as the useless ideology of hate that it is. It should be mocked, condemned and excluded from daily life. Marginalizing conservatism would fundamentally correct what is wrong with the Supreme Court, lower courts, policing and legislation. Destroying conservatism would also help to save the planet from manmade climate change as we'd finally be permitted to address it.

Conservatives have been ruining the planet and everything on it for generations. Do your part to marginalize conservatism. Disown conservatives in your daily life. Do not engage in business or personal relationships with them.

Jah348,

What’s shocking is 100% opposition by Republicans

Idk if shocking is the term I’d use here. Maybe something like, “completely expected lack of ethics from the republican party after decades of consistent actions”

CynAq,
CynAq avatar

You're misunderstanding NYT's position and intention on this when they call it "strict new ethics rules". They are a neoliberal organization who'll side with republicans more often than they do with progressives. They are trying to paint it in a bad, big government kinda sentiment when they call it "strict".

CyanFen,

The word “strict” does not inherently mean bad or oppressive. It just means that the rules have teeth.

CynAq,
CynAq avatar

Yes. That's why who said what, and in what context, matters.

SCB,

Imagine being so delusionally perpetually online that you misread a NYT article so completely.

pelespirit,
@pelespirit@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yeah, NYT deserves a lot of side eye when you’re reading it.

LexiconDexicon,

Cool

Now do the same with Congress and I bet half of them would resign, both democrats and republicans are human garbage when it comes to “ethics”

TechnoBabble,

I’m honestly surprised that people are so partisan, instead of saying “fuck them all, we want change!”

It’s 2023 and people are rooting their entire identity based on their political party. It’s madness.

BurnTheRight,

Instead of wrapping up all Democrats as human garbage, let's specify the neo-liberal majority of Democrats as human garbage. The few progressives we have are valuable, so we need to be careful not to throw them out with the bathwater.

The rest of the motherfuckers would look great floating in space, though.

absentthereaper,

Same lobbyists, different nights.

TransplantedSconie,

Of course it did. They want nothing to do with ethical thoughts

teuast,

if you rearrange the letters in “ethics,” change some, and add a few, you get “communism.” coincidence? i think not!

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