The Supreme Court is doing what it wants. Will the Democrats ever investigate?

The Supreme Court is facing the most public scrutiny it has seen in decades, following revelations that Justice Clarence Thomas hid luxurious gifts he received from a billionaire conservative donor, revelations that have in turn turned into stories about the ethically dubious financial arrangements of other judges.

In response, democrats in Congress, led by Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), have sent letters to Chief Justice John Roberts politely requesting to introduce yourself before a committee (or send another judge in his place), and asked for answers on a number of ethical issues. Roberts has largely rebuffed Congress with claims of separation of powers, saying the court will continue to control itself.

On Monday afternoon, Roberts provided a short answer to questions Durbin raised about the lack of a binding code of ethics in court after the chief justice refused to testify.

A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Supreme Court ethics reform is scheduled for Tuesday. But it will be only the second hearing that Congress has held in the past two years on the issue, even as a steady spate of corruption scandals and ethical lapses in court have emerged.

Democrats’ slow movement on Capitol Hill raises questions about whether they really want to challenge the courts’ power grabs and ethical failings, even as public opinion about the court and its decisions plummet.

“The scheduled Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is a step in this direction, but we need to see more consistent oversight and strong action to (restrain) the Court’s ’emperor is naked’ ethical approach and address the legitimacy crisis. of the Court,” Russ said. Feingold, president of the American Constitution Society and a former Democratic senator from Wisconsin who served on the judiciary committee, in a statement to HuffPost.

There are many things that Congress could investigate. Over the past two decades, Justice Clarence Thomas has failed to reveal hundreds of thousands of dollars in luxury gifts from billionaire conservative donor Harlan Crow. Thomas also did not reveal your sale of a property to Crow, who has helped finance efforts to push the court to the right. Meanwhile, Judge Neil Gorsuch, could not report that the head of a major law firm with business in court bought more than $1 million worth of property from him.

These disclosure failures continue the leak of may 2022 of Judge Samuel Alito’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that ended women’s federal right to abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade. Roberts ordered an internal investigation, which failed to find the leaker. A final report revealed that the investigation only lightly probed the judges about his possible role and he didn’t make them sign affidavits like all the other employees.

Later, the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former evangelical leader who ran a lobbying campaign influence the court to overturn Roe, alleged that Alito previously leaked his 2014 Hobby Lobby decision to a supporter.

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing with Schenck’s testimony in 2022, before the Democrats passed the gavel to the Republicans. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on court ethics on Tuesday. Durbin has also exchanged letters with Roberts, as has Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.), chairman of the judicial subcommittee that covers the courts.

“They need to investigate Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow and all the related corruption,” said Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president of the Take Back the Court Action Fund. “They need to pass ethics legislation that means that, for the first time, the Supreme Court has a real binding code of ethics.”

As with many issues in the Democratic Party right now, Democrats in Congress may be making the rounds here in part because of the party’s generational divide.

Older and longest-serving Democratic elected officials “came of age in the warm glow of the Warren Court,” a rare period in which the court expanded rather than restricted rights, “and who, therefore, they cling to the outdated view of the Supreme Court as a force forever,” Maya Sen, a professor at Harvard Law School. theorized after Roberts declined Durbin’s invitation to testify.

This attitude could prevent a real investigation of the court, as older Democrats still believe that the court’s legitimacy is owed, not earned.

“Old habits are hard to break,” said Brian Fallon, executive director of Demand Justice, a progressive legal group. “There is still a knee-jerk impulse among Democrats of a certain age to defend even a broken institution because of the lessons they learned in fifth grade civics class.”

There is also a pervasive cynicism that afflicts many long-serving legislators who come to believe that using their power to force legislative or interbranch fights is not worth the effort, Fallon said.

Just look at how Democrats have handled the situation of Judiciary Committee member Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has been absent from the Senate since February due to illness and age. Durbin called on Republicans to “show some kindness” and allow Democrats to replace her on the panel. But Republicans refused to support a new organizing resolution to remove Feinstein from the committee, because that would help Democrats confirm more justices.

“The reaction to the fallout from the predictable blockade from the Republicans is like, ‘Okay, we tried,’” Fallon said.

This is not to say that the investigation into the court’s ethical morass will not be serious, even if Democrats cannot pass legislation requiring the court to adopt a code of conduct. There is increased support from members of the judiciary committee, including Whitehouse and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), to fully investigate the court. The court must consider the subpoenas not only for Thomas and Roberts, but also for Crow, Blumenthal told MSNBC last week.

A “charitable explanation” for Durbin’s slowness and deference to the court is that he “would like to go on record that he gave Roberts repeated opportunities to clean his own house and that he is being grudgingly pressured to carry out his own investigation”. because the judiciary will not attend to its own business,” Fallon said.

“Instead of refusing to call Clarence Thomas to testify because you think he won’t comply, call him to testify,” Lipton-Lubet said. “Let him refuse. Let people see that. Doing that can illustrate the problem better than half a dozen sternly worded statements.”

But if the committee’s efforts turn into “a box-checking exercise” that only seeks to “throw the hot potato in Roberts’ lap,” Fallon says, “that would be a failure.”