WASHINGTON — One of the Supreme Court’s most vocal Democratic critics said Sunday that justices operate in a “fact-free zone” and said Congress “absolutely” has the power to impose ethical standards on the judiciary, a response to the president of the president. John Roberts raises his concerns about the separation of powers.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, DR.I., criticized Justice Clarence Thomas for refusing to recuse himself from cases related to the January 6, 2021 insurrection investigation. Justice’s wife, Ginni Thomas, a longtime conservative political activist, advocated keeping Trump in the White House after he lost the 2020 election. Whitehouse said he doubted Judge Thomas was unaware of his wife’s political activities.
“This is a matter of fact,” Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “The problem with the Supreme Court is that they are in a fact-free zone and an ethics-free zone.”
Ginni Thomas has said she does not discuss her political activities with her husband.
Roberts has suggested that the justices themselves should keep an eye on ethics and flagged “separation of powers concerns” to suggest that Congress’s role in imposing policy on the court is limited. Whitehouse rejected that argument Sunday, and many legal experts point out that Congress has always had a role in establishing judicial procedures.
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“It absolutely can,” Whitehouse said of Congress’ power. “It’s constitutional because the laws we’re talking about right now are laws passed by Congress.”
The debate over whether Congress has the constitutional power to impose an ethics code on the Supreme Court is somewhat academic at the moment. Debates over transparency and ethics on the high court have become partisan, and there does not appear to be support among most Republican lawmakers to pass the legislation.
“The court gives finality to things that sometimes I don’t agree with, sometimes I don’t,” Roy Blunt, a former Republican senator from Missouri, told NBC. “But what we don’t want is to bring the court down with the rest of us.”
