Alito ‘stunningly wrong’ that Senate can’t impose supreme court ethics rules
Senator Chris Murphy has dismissed claims by the supreme court justice, Samuel Alito, that the Senate has “no authority” to create a code of conduct for the court as “stunningly wrong”.
The Connecticut Democrat made those remarks in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, adding that Alito “should know that more than anyone else because his seat on the supreme court exists only because of an act passed by Congress”.
“It is Congress that establishes the number of justices on the supreme court,” Murphy said. “It is Congress that has passed in the past requirements for justices to disclose certain information, and so it is just wrong on the facts to say that Congress doesn’t have anything to do with the rules guiding the supreme court.”
A Supreme Court Justice saying/believing something this fundamentally incorrect about the expectations of their job should be disqualifying.
Alas…
It's been personal opinions for a while...
They're also not supposed to make laws either, but the whole "qualified immunity" thing where cops are allowed to do anything and not be held accountable was a court decision.
They only care about the rules when it agrees with what they want.
It's weird seeing the SC destroyed by SC judges in my lifetime. When I was a kid everyone had such a high opinion of them
That depends on when you grew up. It seems from this data that the golden age of being a SCOTUS judge just was the late 80s, but any other time in recent history (prior or subsequently) the SCOTUS struggled to get even half the country to approve of them.
It's definitely way worse, now, though.
Edit: Bleh, typos.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
Insanity has been an ever present factor for the court.
Not engaging in interstate commerce effects interstate commerce. So everything effects interstate commerce, wow.
I mean it's pretty clear to me. The constitution says that Congress writes all laws, and nothing about the courts is noted in powers congress does not have.
Then about the Supreme Court, it says that justices shall serve during "good behavior". Who could possibly define what that means legally besides congress?
Seems pretty clear that Congress could pass many different types of laws on SCOTUS that would be constitutional. Whether that is adding more justices, setting term limits, or creating and ethics standard.
Alito is a moron. The SC is to decide things between states and other high level topics. It's not an untouchable organization.
The power to determine what laws are or are not Constitutional, that the Supreme Court wields, is also not in the Constitution.
It comes from a precedent set by John Marshall.
We could show them what originalism really means by revoking that power and replacing it with the will of the people.
We have loads of historical context as to what “good behavior” means in terms of public office from the era in which the Constitution was written in. The text’s intent is clear to scholars and experts.
It’s also clear that the Legislature cannot write a law which restricts or limits another branch’s power or authority absent explicit language in the Constitution.
I’m not sure what your thought process is here, but your comment reads like someone who saw the headline and that is precisely where your expertise in the field ends.
Well that’s not true at all, unless you think that the Supreme Court deciding something is “unconstitutional” is unconstitutional, being that it’s not explicitly stated in the constitution, and the supreme uses it regularly to limit the power and authority of congress
Alito nor Murphy make specific references.
Murphy is correct that Congress has written laws over the decades about how SCOTUS is run, I guess without you making any sort of citation I wonder where your expertise is coming from?
What does good behavior mean if it's so known and clear?
Have changes to the court via Congress in the past been illegal power grabs?
Besides commenting on who you think I am, you hardly added to the discussion.
Makes you wonder what else Alito is “stunningly wrong” about.
nah it's everything
Each branch checks the other two and keeps them in balance. I thought we all learned this in high school? Or at the very least I'm sure Alito learned this, whether he cares to remember or not.
Yes but Congress "checks" SCOTUS by nominating and approving (Senate only) justices, allocating resources for the appellate courts and impeaching justices. Not by regulating their moral character.
An ethics process similar to the ethics process in the House and Senate would not be something Congress could implement without a Constitutional Amendments. In theory SCOTUS could implement it upon themselves (although they lack the power to remove/censure their fellow justices like the House and Senate can do), but they could only request Congress impeach someone who failed the ethics review.
Reread Article 3, please. Congress structures the Courts, and justices hold their positions during "good behavior". Doesn't it follow that Congress can establish what "good behavior" means?
If they aren't physically accountable to anyone then they might as well be the unelected Junta of the United States. Someone has to determine what good behavior actually is, and if it's them themselves then that flies in the face of the entire interdependent system of government we have.
If you go by the strict interpretation of the constitution, the SC isn't even the highest court. It's only the interstate court. They appointed themselves the highest court in a case.
"The court's power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court (1801–1835).[17] Under Marshall, the court established the power of judicial review over acts of Congress,[18] including specifying itself as the supreme expositor of the Constitution (Marbury v. Madison)[19][20] "
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States
So they basically said "I'm in charge because I said so". That's precarious at best, and it would just take Congress to say "no you're not" for it to fall apart.
I really think this is something that could be argued. You seem to be arguing for a strict interpretation of the constitution rather than a lot of ones we see today that have changed repeatedly and/or made more modern interpretations. A strict interpretation would also mean that the supreme court doesn't have the power to decide if laws are constitutional or not as that's not specifically in the constitution nor granted with an amendment.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-3/
Congress shouldn't be able to implement arbitrary rules on the Judicial branch any more than the Executive branch should. Internally, SCOTUS already has self-imposed ethics rules that are suppose to be followed; similar to the ethics rules in Congress passed for itself.
What do you think judicial power is? The power to hold dinner parties it's? It's literally the power to interpret the law. Its not written because everyone with half a brain can understand that.
Then maybe a super strict “as written” interpretation of the constitution is dumb.
Except that is an "as written" interpretation because it would take intentionally misunderstand to not understand what judicial powers entail. You aren't making a point against anything, just being dumb.
Wait, the Supreme Court doesn't just have carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want with no oversight?
Oh they absolutely do. They're throwing a screaming fit because everyone else wants to change it.
Not that precedent has mattered to the Highlander quickening "Supreme Court Justice".
Exactly what will Congress do but jackshit. Supreme Court will continue to be corrupt.
Then prove him wrong.
The court is no longer fit for purpose. Where we go now is anyone’s guess.
I am pretty fascinated (read: terrified) about what happens if Congress makes a law giving ethics requirements for the SCOTUS and they strike it down as unconstitutional.
Congress could amend the constitution. Hard to argue that that's unconstitutional.
That's waaaay harder, not easier, particularly in this environment.
If that happened I’d expect to see Biden go all in on packing the court. The gloves would be well and truly off at that point.
Which is where we should already be. It's where the republicans are with it. They've been packing the court since Bork got Borked, and went full gloves off during Obama's last year in office.
I propose a compromise nobody likes. The court gets ethics rules and Congress gets actual bribery and corruption investigations again.
In proper democracy all parts of the government are hold accountable to some other part of the government. This makes no part of the government to be above everyone else.
The system was built on checks-and-balances. Because the country didn’t like being under an absolute monarchy. But like cockroaches, they keep coming back.
Alito knows Congress isn't going to do shit.
The Federalists should be kicked int he head for what they’re trying to do. What a bunch of evil degenerates. I bet their weirdo cult orgies are the talk of the town tho.
The Supreme Court wants us to overturn Marbury, which like we can do but I don’t think conservatives will be happy about it
Murphy is wrong here though. Congress has no authority to regulate the conduct of SCOTUS. They only have the right to "yeet" a justice via impeachment. So they could pass one and then impeach for failure to follow, but they'd still have to follow the same procedure for impeachment that they nominally would have to do.