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.
Holy paywall, Batman
I don’t know how anyone could disagree with Kagan here in good faith. Of course congress has the power to regulate the supreme court. They’ve passed numerous regulations for the court in the past, and the constitution expressly gives the power to regulate the specifics of the court to congress. Even the number of justices in the court is chosen by congress. It wasn’t nine until they passed a bill saying it was. And congress can impeach and remove justices too. I think the more corrupt members of the court just fear any actual oversight happening for once.
Yeah but the Federalist society spent 50 years managing the delicate task of capturing the Supreme Court and stacking it with ignorant studgies, so it seems unfair that Congress could undue all of that hard work on their part.
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.
…on Congress’s power over supreme court ethics, unicorns, flying pigs, and santa claus
