Washington — Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin will try to unanimously pass legislation Wednesday that would require the Supreme Court to adopt binding ethics rules amid recent press reports judge Samuel Alito.
Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, plans to seek unanimous consent to pass the legislation Wednesday night, meaning it could be blocked by opposition from just one lawmaker. Republicans will almost certainly object.
The bill, introduced by Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, would require the Supreme Court to adopt a binding code of conduct and establish a mechanism for investigating alleged violations of ethics rules and other laws. It would also require the Supreme Court to impose stricter rules on disclosure of gifts, travel and income received by the justices and their clerks.
The proposal approved the Senate Judiciary Committee in a party-line vote last July, but was not brought to a vote given widespread opposition from Republicans.
Whitehouse rolled out the legislation last year in response to reporting from the news channel ProPublica detailed travels of Justice Clarence Thomas took with a Republican megadonor, Harlan Crow, about whom he did not report on his financial disclosures.
Supreme Court Ethics
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The revelations increased pressure on the Supreme Court to unilaterally adopt formal ethics rules. what the judges did in November. But the code announced by the Supreme Court does not contain an enforcement mechanism.
The investigation into the Supreme Court’s ethics practices had largely fallen silent until recently, when the New York Times revealed that an upside-down American flag flew outside Alito’s Virginia residence in January 2021 and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag was displayed outside. from his vacation home in New Jersey last summer.
Both types of flags were carried by rioters who breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and have been associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement.
Alito said in a letter to Durbin and Whitehouse that the flags were raised by his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, and said neither knew the meaning ascribed to them. The judge said the inverted American flag was flown at a time when Martha-Ann Alito was involved in a neighborhood dispute in which he was not involved. Alito also said his wife did not fly the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which dates back to the American Revolution, to associate herself with any group.
Alito was also secretly recorded by a liberal filmmaker at an event held at the Supreme Court earlier this month that discussed whether it was possible for ideological opponents to compromise. The audio was posted on social media.
“One side or the other is going to win. I don’t know,” he told filmmaker Lauren Windsor, posing as a Catholic conservative. “There can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences over fundamental issues that really can’t be compromised.”
Tomas, meanwhile included in his latest financial disclosure form an amendment to his 2019 report that noted two trips with Crow to Indonesia and California. The judge said he was given food and shelter. The information was “inadvertently omitted at the time of filing,” his report said.
The inclusion of Alito and Thomas’ disclosure of the trips with Crow intensified the political backlash surrounding the two justices and the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.
Durbin’s move also comes amid pressure from the left for action in response to the ethics controversies that have escalated in recent weeks, with new energy behind moves to force recusals among the justices and impose enforcement mechanisms for the Supreme Court’s new code of conduct. But Senate Democrats have faced fierce opposition in their efforts time and again, amid concerns about the separation of power between the two branches of government.
The Supreme Court is nearing the end of its current term and so it is set to pass on major decisions on guns, abortion, and federal regulatory power. It will also decide whether former President Donald Trump is entitled to sweeping immunity from federal prosecution for alleged official actions that occurred while in office.
Democrats called on Alito to withdraw from that case and another in which the Justice Department had used a federal obstruction statute against Jan. 6 defendants, and the judge refused to step aside.
