For the second summer in a row, Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Elena Kagan sketched out dueling conceptions of their institution’s place in the constitutional structure.
For the second summer in a row, Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Elena Kagan sketched out dueling conceptions of their institution’s place in the constitutional structure.
And unfortunately even if congress did pass an ethics law and the supreme court self declared they are ignoring it, then the only recourse would be impeachment and removal. I think we all know republicans wouldn’t stand for their federalist society stooges to get booted, so we’re left with the pretty unreasonable prospect of getting 67 seats in the senate controlled by democrats to make that happen. Since republicans are unwilling to enforce any ethics regulations on the court, Democrats would need to keep the presidency, retake the house in 2024, and probably need to end the filibuster to overcome Republican objections unless by some miracle they got up to 60+ seats in the senate, but I still think they should try and pass it. Having supreme court justices flagrantly ignore ethics regulations passed by congress may start to galvanize more support for further reforms.
Absolutely, sometimes having the discussion is the best you can do. At least it exposes more citizens to the fact the institution is corrupt and in need of oversight. From there hopefully the pressure grows, or at least the realization that this was done intentionally and the lesson learned for the future.
That’s not the only recourse. They could reduce the Court’s budget and thus force them to hear fewer cases. They could even reduce the budget according to the number of ethics violations, basically amounting to a collective fine on the SCOTUS.