Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday blocked an attempt by Senate Democrats to pass Supreme Court reform legislation by unanimous consent, thwarting efforts to establish a binding ethics code for the nation’s top court as two of its right-wing justices come under fire for taking billionaire-funded luxury vacations and flying flags associated with the January 6 insurrection.
The Democratic legislation — titled the the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act — advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee nearly a year ago without any GOP support. The bill would give the high court 180 days to adopt a binding code of ethics and establish new recusal requirements surrounding justices’ acceptance of gifts.
Supreme Court justices are currently the only federal judges in the U.S. not bound by an ethics code. Last year, under massive pressure following revelations of Justice Clarence Thomas‘ undisclosed luxury trips, the Supreme Court announced an ethics code with no enforcement mechanism, effectively rendering it toothless.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the lead sponsor of the SCERT Act, said Wednesday that he was “not surprised” Republicans blocked the attempt to pass his bill.
“The highest court shouldn’t have the lowest ethics standards,” Whitehouse wrote on social media. “What’s controversial about that?”
The chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), spearheaded Democrats’ attempt Wednesday to pass the SCERT Act by unanimous consent, process under which just one objection is enough to block legislation. Given Democrats’ narrow control of the Senate and the continued existence of the legislative filibuster, the bill almost certainly would have failed had it gone to a full vote.
“For more than a year, the Supreme Court has been embroiled in an ethical crisis of its own design,” Durbin said in a floor speech Wednesday. “Story after story about ethical misconduct by sitting Supreme Court justices has led the news for months. For decades, however, Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted lavish gifts and luxury trips from a gaggle of fawning billionaires. The total dollar value of these gifts is in the millions. One Supreme Court justice — millions of dollars worth of gifts.”
“Justice [Samuel] Alito, as well, went on a luxury fishing trip that should have cost him over $100,000 — but it didn’t cost him a dime, because the trip was funded by a billionaire and organized by rightwing kingpin Leonard Leo. Both Justice Thomas and Justice Alito have failed to disclose gifts they have accepted — in clear violation of financial disclosure requirements under federal law. But it isn’t only this shameless conduct that has cast a dark shadow over the court. Time and again, these justices’ actions have cast doubt on their impartiality in cases before the court.”
Graham’s obstruction of the ethics bill came as the Supreme Court is weighing a slew of high-stakes cases, including one on whether former President Donald Trump is immune from criminal prosecution.
Thomas, whose wife supported efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and Alito, who blamed his wife for flying pro-insurrection flags at two of their homes, have both rejected calls to recuse themselves from the case.
“The Supreme Court clearly can’t and won’t police itself,” Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America, said in a statement Wednesday. “Time and again, the right-wing majority on the court has shown that it is unwilling to abide by basic rules of ethics. Passing the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Actwas an opportunity to guarantee basic ethics standards and restore some trust in the highest court in our country.”
“Eighty percent of voters want Congress to pass a binding code of ethics for the Supreme Court,” Harvey added. “Senate Republicans just showed how out of touch they are with what most Americans want — a Supreme Court free of corruption — when they refused to hold our Supreme Court justices accountable to the same ethical standards that apply to members of Congress and public servants across the country.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.