House Oversight Cmte. Democrats Lead Discussion on Supreme Court Ethics : CSPAN : June 12, 2024 3:36am-6:10am EDT : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive (2024)

2 1/2 hours. >> welcome everybody to our democratic roundtable, entitled a high low standards and dark money, flagging a supreme ethics crisis in america. we have some terrific panelists appearing in two different panels with us this afternoon. i want to start by thanking my

distinguished vice raking member of the oversight committee from new york for her superb outstanding work on this panel and i do hope it is the beginning of her journey perhaps to law school. she could go to law school part-time. this is what senator robert byrd did. i know that because he went to law school whe taught, american university, and he went on to become our preeminent constitutional champion in the senate. a position now held by our first witness from the u.s. senate, senator sheldon whitehouse, who represents rhode island. he is the chair of the house-senate budget committee and he has been working expertly to try to restore both the integrity and reputation of the supreme courtally combat the infiltration of dark money into the federal judiciary for many years.

we are going to make our opening statements and then turned it over to you, senator whitehouse, unless you need to get back to th for a vote right now. >> i am at your pleasure. >> welcome and thank you for joining us. i will recognize myself now for my opening statement. then i will turned it over to the vice wrecking member. the crisis on the supreme court today has multiple dimensions to it. it is not just the ethical crisis which the whole country is talking about it's the doctrinal and political crises as these are interlocked and are mutually reinforcing and it all adds up to one profound crisis of constitutional legitimacy in the country. the seminal moment for understanding our current situation took place in 2000, with the 5-4 supreme court decision in bush versus gore to intervene in florida's electoral process to stop the counting of ballots, thereby handing for president bush the national popular vote loser of the

presidency on the most fallacious and dubious of grounds. court never explained why blocking the counting more than 100,000 votes vindicated equal protection a constitutional principle a completely abandoned of course when it came to the rights of racial minorities and women, nor did the right wing justices show much logic or integrity of their own ruling when they said "our consideration is limited to the present circ*mstances for the problem of equal protection and election processes generally present many complexities." deny any presidential -- is of course the precise opposite of the rule of the precise opposite of the rule of law -- of the rule of law which depends on logic, reason and president. it did lead to the exquisite logical paradox that i bush versus gore, you

cannot treat the case as president, and says you cannot treat it as president, then the passage saying it cannot be precedent itself shouldn't be followed. in practice, hundreds of federal state decisions have cited various aspects of this outrageous decision. for our purposes of understanding, the supreme court's public reputation is in the gutter today the key point is that george w. bush's 5-4 victory in the supreme court allowed him not only to game john roberts as chief justice, but to replace moderate justice that are day o'connor with samuel alito antiunion pro-nra federal society lawyer and judge. everything would have been different completely today if al gore had not been denied the presidency by the supreme court. and we had in the place of justices alito and thomas today speaking hypotheticacharlotte isil.

but that new right wing 5-4 majority which included clarence thomas, who astonishingly replaced thurgood marshall as appointee of george h. w. bush, proceeded to dramatically erode the voting rights of the people and set the stage for a resurgence of political what the premises. there are many relevant cases in this genre, but consider this key one, in 2013, and shelby county versus holder, the five right-wing justices cut the heart out of the voting rights act of 1965 by essentially nullifying the central section five federal preclearance mechanism by finding that the section for coverage formula was now obsolete and dysfunctional because there was no more racism in the political system. in dissent, justice ruth bader ginsburg liken it to somewhat decided to go over there umbrella in a rainstorm because

they weren't getting wet. this decision, within weeks or months, led to a dramatic rise in voter suppression and disenfranchisem*nt tactics and skins throughout the south and in other areas, with 15 states canceling online voter registration early voting, mail-in balloting, same-day voter registration and other reforms and imposing serious new blockades and obstacles to participation including photo i.d. laws, regular mass urges in the voting rolls of voters who missed a single election. and the closure of 868 polling places predominately in african-american communities all in the three years immediately after the decision getting the voting rights act and leading up to the 2016 president election. although hillary clinton trumped by more than two point 5 million votes nationally in the popular vote he still eked out an election college -- electoral

college which are in 20 the popular vote loser then came to name three right-wing supreme court justices of his own, neil uch, and amy coney barrett, all three under a radically questionable and dubious circ*mstances. neil gorsuch got the seat that president obama had nominated judge merrick garland to -- garland was the chief judge of the d.c. circuit court of a and was arguably in my mind, one of the most qualified people ever to be nominated to the supreme court. disclosed a vacancy created by the death of justice scalia in february of 2016. president obama nominated merrick garland to fill the vacancy on march 16, 2016, but senator mitch mcconnell and his wisdom, said there would be no hearings or votes because men like before the new presidential term, was to close, and the

people should decide. with only nine months to go. of course, the people was elected to one of those genuine bona fide constitutional four- year terms as president. but mcconnell successfully blocked any hearings into the nomination of merrick garland at any consideration of nomination. the seat remained vacant when president obama left office. then when trump got in, he immediately nominated in the right, neil gorsuch. to demonstrate how arrogant and devil may care the right wing gotten about running roughshod over all principles and norms that might interfere with their co-absolute detey including the norms and principles they have made up themselves in the past, consider that when justice ginsburg died on september 18, 2020, less than two months before the generalalready

started in several states, mcconnell literally laughed at the idea that he would be bound by the president he had created just for years before in the senate with the merrick garland nomination's. the senate proceeded to ram through amy coney barrett's nomination like a thief in the night. everyone here presumably understands what happened there and a new documentary is coming out on the brutal miscarriage of justice that took place. now donald trump is bragging all over americahat "after 50 years of failure with nobody coming close, i was able to kill a roe v. wade, much to the shock of everyone." he and mitch mcconnell packedndered the court and now this right-wing corporatgned to destroy roe v. wade as diffuse right-wing religion with untrammeled corporate power, has been demolishing women's abortion and

contraceptive rights, voting rights law,, civil liberties environmental law, workers' rights, consumer rights, and training government power and people whenever they conflict. the court has been behaving like a rabid partisan actor. a few weeks ago, in alexander versus south carolina naacp, another 6-3 ruling, the right-wing we majority up held congressional redistricting plan that the plaintiffs describedrymander designed to thwart and dilute the voting rights of african-american voters in south carolina. but the right wing majority held that the african-american plaintiffs failed to show that the legislature was motivated by race when it relocated thousands of black voters out of the first congressional district, dramatically changing the political balance of power that

district. justice alito held for the majority instead that the legislature was merely seeking to make the seat cipro for republicans, which is a legitimate goal, he said, and does not violate equal protection. under this court, it violates equal protection when florida just tries to count ballots in florida. but it doesn't violate equal protection when african-american voters are drawn out of a congressional district to create a safe way to majority republican district. constitutional doctrine has been reduced in this court to assume the blatantly unjust and thoroughly ideological decisions like these, upholding white political supremacy, racial inequality, corporate power and right wing control over our democratic institutions. all the lectures about textualism and originalism today are nothing but a fraud on the public. i want to get into that today, and i want to talk about the citizens united if we get a chance, with senator whitehouse and i want to talk about the

jurisprudence. but the right-wing justices, five of them named to the court by bush and trump, the two presidents elected in this century to the presidency after losing the popular vote, now act entirely like the judicial arm of the republican party which represents a small minority of the american people. it is no coincidence that justice and mrs. alito brandished the flag symbols of right wing nationalists. no coincidence that justice thomas takes millions of dollars from his right wing corporate sugar daddies. after all, if you can decide presidential elections with 5-4 and vote in bush v gore, if you can gerrymander it not just congress, but the supreme court itself by denying the party a hearing, why can't you not have a friend in the court fly you tobali

for vacation or pay for your family members private tuition or value aional vehicle, or send you an lavish all expense paid vacation? why the hell not? the highest court in the land today has the lowest ethical standards, and yet, they are the only jurists in t given the honorific "justice" rather than judge. yet with their lopsided and ideological jurisprudence, the rights of the people, and with their obscene ethical transgressions, they have completely forfeited their right to be called justice. and unless i forget to do it from now on, they are just judgeo me at best. i look forward to hearing from our excellent panelists today about how we got into this predicament, a get out. and i happily turn -- i will recognize the advice of ranking member, ms. ocasio-cortez for any remarks she sees fit to give.

rep. ocasio-cortez: thank you so much mr. chairman, ranking member raskin. it's an honor for us to convene and discuss arguably one of the most critical issues befe american democracy today. and with respect to law school, maybe if you are my professor mr. ranking member -- [laughs] -- i would be happy to explore the possibility. but back to the matter at hand. the supreme court is currently facing a grave crisis of legitimacy crisis of its own making. about 50 years ago, a group of powerful wealthy conservative operatives, looked around and realized that they were losing. in 1964 the civil rights act had passed prohibiting discrimination in the united states on the basis of race color, religion, sex, or national origin. in 1970, at a time when rivers were fire from pollution, the federal government created the

environmental protection agency finally taking a measure of responsibility for the health and safety of working people and our climate, and confronting polluters and corporations in the process. e men, three years later in 1973 the supreme court decided roe v. wade, giving women reproductive freedom, and training a writer -- enshrining a right to privacy, and marking a major advancement for bodily rights and autonomy. the nation was changing. it was changing to more fully realized our country's promised -- for democracy for the people, by the people, with liberty and justice for all. but the snow world, a democracy with civil and economic rights enshrined threatened the power of the very people who relied on this discrimination and segregationthers. these wealthy conservative men

knew they couldn't win the argument on merits. so they hatched a plan to manufacture a structural assault on the american judicial system. in 1973, the same year as roe v. wade, the heritage foundation was born, and with that, a decades-long scheme to push back on these ideals and cement a hith men, the elite 1%, could remain on top to roll back our rights. today we are here to talk about how they did it and how we may win the struggle back for american democracy. they did not have popular support. they did not have elected office. but what they did have was money, and a lot of it. one of these men is learnedly -- leonard leo. he became one of the movement to

correct the court of most prolific fundraisers. he organized right wing billionaires to shore up infrastructure to influence the judicial nomination process and seats on the supreme court wholesale. he funded group after group to spread he is his billionaire friends' reactionary ideology. billionaires include characters such as oil and gas magnet charles koch, hedge fund manager paul singer and nazi paraphernalia collector harlan. the son of the "biggest private landlord in the united states ." these billionaires have never been elected to public office. they are unknown by the vast majority of americans. and yet worked with shadowy extremists, right-wing figures led by leonard leo to create a corruption rating of influence that reached the

highest levels of our country and our courts. these billionaires hatched a plan to use massive floods of anonymous donations, political of his condition, and outright gifts and ethics violations to reshape the courts. and so far to this day, they have experienced success. let's be clear. justices clarence thomas and samuel alito are deeply subject to and are exactly the agenda of these billionaires. and they act like it. just look at clarence thomas whose corruption is almost comical. secret trips to retreats. international vacations on super yachts, and private jet jaunts to new haven for an congress are prohibited from receiving gifts that exceed $50.

but justice thomas has received more than $4 million in gifts, largely undisclosed, since joining the court. and worse, it appears to be working. he is currently primed to overturn his own 2005 doctrine so he can side with charles koch's network and their oil and gas france. the same charles koch who he secretly vacationed with. or take his friendship with billionaire paul singer, along with more undisclosed gifts and private jet trips, was followed by a shift in the courtship of decision to take up singer about own case. coincidentally, after justice alito took a unreported fishing trip to alaska with paul singer the supreme court took up his case, ultimately leading him to a victory netting 2.4 billion dollars. this was not a bad return on singer's $80 million in political donations, a fishing trip and a couple bottles of thousand dollar wine. and of course, in 2022, these billionaires and their

handpicked justices won their keystone victory against the american people and their progress of the society -- the overturned roe v. wade. so why was it abortion? why was the threat of women having freedom powerful enough to bring down our whole system of digital ethics and article i of the coequal branches of government? that's because these rich and powerful are in an existential site for a status quo that enshrines their power and places them above the american public in the rules. the confluence of money and conservatism is no coincidence and we are here today to connect the dots. the group behind the dobbs challenge was predictably funded by who else -- leonard leo, and found a friendly court in of right wing extremists. and we have also seen as well as the conservative justices clarence thomas and justice

samuel alito. after all, these justices continue to agree to this bargain by continuing to accept and engage in the spring of influence and financial persuasion. this brings us to the cross of the -- the crux of the matter and why we are holding this hearing. as it stands today is delegitimizing itself. americans are losing fundamental right in the process. reproductive health care, civil liberties, voting rights, the right to organize clean air and water, because the supreme court has been captured and corrupted by many. -- by money. it is the entire strategy that led us to this point. a group of antidemocratic billionaires with their own ideological and economic agenda, has been working one of the three coequal branches of government.

and let's be clear, the supreme court is a coequal branch of government. they do not reign supreme over congress for the white house. this is the very core crisis of legitimacy and it is a core crisis within the court of our multiracial democracy, and of who we are as a country. the responsibility for the erosion of the court not only lies in the portcongress. and it's not just what they do, but if we let it happen. and we cannot allow this to happen. we must treat this moment like the emergency it is and use every tool in our in our democracy's arsenal to fight back. of our democracy depends on it the future of our democracy depends on it. with that, i yield back to the ranking member. rep. raskin: thank you very much. we will open with our fast panel, which is senator sheldon whitehouse from rhode island.

he has been blowing the whistle on the ethical and constitutional deterioration of the supreme court for and he has focused a lot of his energy on mapping out the dark-money networks behind the corruption of the supreme court. he has a book which i recommend highly to you all called "the scheme: how the right wing used dark money to capture the supreme court." he's introduced a lot of legislation to curb anonymous dark-money groups, including the end tax breaks for dark money act, which would close tax code loopholes allowing billionaires to avoid capital gains taxes by donating money to dark money groups. and the disclosure act, which would require groups that spend money supporting or opposing judicial nominees to disclose who their donors are from what i want to welcome you, senator whitehouse. it has been a pleasure to work with you on this and also the question of the oil and gas 's complicity with the cover-up. science relating to climate

-- the cover-up of the science relating to climate change. you have a few remarks. sen. whitehouse: thank you very ' ce ranking member ocasio-cortez. and a particular shout-out also to congressman hank johnson, who has the coordinate position that i have, which is the lead democrat on the courts subcommittee of the judiciary committee, and who has been outstanding to work with across several years and many issues. the context for this conversation is rooted in the doctrines of regulatory capture and agency capture. these are doctrines about which there is much literature and also much sad experience. some decades ago the evil genius of the scheme was to take the tactics of regulatory

capture, agency capture, and apply them not to administrative agencies, back to our courts particularly to our supreme court. and in the service of that, we have seen the billionaire-funded judicial selection process nominally run through the federalist society, but if you look at the records of the federalist society, you can't actually find recommendations or support for the so-called trump list. that was cooked up in a room somewhere by leonard leo and his funding billionaires. the selection process puts them court, then the billionaire gifts program kicks in to make sure that the amenable justices are provided lifestyles of the rich and famous. at the billionaires fund dark-many factories in friendly think tanks and universities

and the doctrines that are cooked up there like about major question the doctrine recently applied, are then brought to the court throu the tillers of billionaire-funded amici curae e, usually appearing 10 to 15-number flotillas, but sometimes as many as 50, in the cases where the billionaires really want to signal hard to their handpicked justices that this is a big one and they need to comply. and of course, the whole thing is juiced with dark money funding all of these various enterprises, and also finding senate republicans, who then for the selected justices. what are we doing about that over in the senate? i will give you a quick run through. first of all, we have been trying to put a heavy spotlight on the ms. chief, to create

pressure within the for it to manage its own reforms. some success from that, the supreme court has gone from don't bother us, go away to, ok, here is a letter signed by all nine of us to discuss the position that we take with regard to our ethics. two, ok, that didn't work, here is an ethics code we are adopting for ourselves with a few modifications, and most importantly, no investigation, no enforcement. they are very big gaps in where we are. the nine justices of the u.s. supreme court are the only officials in the entirety of the u.s. government as to whom when an ethics challenge is raised, there is no fact-finding done. even the president had to be

interviewed about the status of documents in his garage. not these nine. they are the only ones. the pressure campaign has worked the degree that they are now at least nominally under an ethics code, but we need to keep the pressure on until they join the rest of the government and having a real ethics code with real fact-finding and some prospects for comparing the facts that are found to the rules. that is avenue avenue two is one. legislation, the ethics bill we have through the senate judiciary committee waiting for a vote. i expect we will have that vote in this congress. and a term-limit bill, and i want to congratulate congressman johnson for his term limits bill. we don't have perfect our bills, but we are pointing in the same direction

and we are not going to pass them until the voters put democrats in charge and at that point, i think we are close enough that we can easily reconcile our bills and provide real term limits that the public really likes for supreme court justices. that 3rd avenue is investigation. i sit on the judiciary committee and on the finance committee. been engaged in investigative activities. the judiciary committee gave chairman durbin subpoena authority, and that investigations are being pursued with the power of that subpoena authority. i would note that the power of that subpoena authority has been somewhat lthe loud declarations by republican senators that the subject of those subpoenas should not comply with them, and that they would never allow them to be enforced if the subjects refused to respond. so i hope and pray that the table, when the house is issuing subpoenas in the space, that aren't subject to the senate filibuster. on the finance side, the finance

committee develop the information that the quarter million dollar loan for justice thomas's motorcoach was never interest was paid, then all payments stopped. we can today to look into the final facts of what actually took place. but no principal on a quarter million dollar loan appears ever to have been repaired. harlan crowe appears to be playing tax games with the yacht that he took justice thomas around indonesia on. and then in some places, he ca yacht. in some cases he called it a charter yacht. we interviewed his crew who said he could never remember a charter, yet he took millions of dollars in tax deductions as if it were a charter yacht. it looks a lot like a billionaire deducting the expense of operating his own toys, which is not what the tax code permits. . so that remains under further investigation.

the 4th avenue, has been working with the judicial conference , with the other distinguished senior judges, chief judges from rcuit and district courts, who are the oversight body for the judicial branch within the judicial branch. it's a body established by congress to enforce laws passed by congress, and they have given two victories for transparency and integrity that i think are very important. the first was to exclude what i call the "scalia trick." the scalia trick was to arrange for the owner of a private resort to invite justice scalia on the free vacation, and then failed to disclose the vacation on the theory that the free vacation gifted by the owner of may never have met was a personal

invitation. end as a personal invitation, it therefore amounted to personal hospitality and needn't be disclosed. we believe he took over 60, 60 of these free i raised vacations. the judicial conference took a look at that and blew it to smithereens, because they knew perfectly well that would never fly in any circuit court or any district court in the second victory for transparency there if you go back to my description , it involved communicating to the justices what it was that the billionaire interest wants through these flotillas of front group amici, who would then not disclose who was really behind them. in one occasion, a brief was filed by an entity which is not even a real corporate entity it it was the fictitious name under virginia corporate law for a separate corporate entity under

which fictitious name that other corporate entity had registered to do business. they didn't even disclose to the court and to the other parties who the real corporate entity was for whom this was the fictitious name. and, just last week the judicial conference announced its new rule demanding significantly better disclosure pulled the bad news is we have a rogue court captured by special interest in that over and over again in a appalling pattern, continuing to follow the direction of the billionaires in the fund groups through which they operate. the good news is the public is fed up congress is fed up, mostly, and the judicial conference is beginning to tighten up the rules on the supreme court justices.

i will close by pointing out that the case is often made that congress has nothing to say about it regulating the ethical conduct of the supreme court justices.the supreme court justices owned behavior belies that notion. when the first round of harlan cole -- harlan crow to clarence thomas gift of free yacht and jet travel came out back in 2010 and 2011, those questions were for the judicial conference, a body established by congress, for what, for review under the disclosure laws passed by congress. through all of that process we had a judge he was involved in that point out weaknesses in the process at the time but with didn't happen in that process was for justice thomas and any other supreme court justice to say, you have no authority over me, i am not subject to the disclosure rules, you cannot investigate me, there is even a

remedy, if it looks like the failure to disclose was willful for disclosure for a proper full investigation, and that question, whether harlan crow to justice thomas second round of gift should be referred to as before the judicial conference right now. much, we are now going to enter into our q&a portion. each member of the oversight committee will be given five minutes. we are delighted to be joined by hank johnson, our colleague from georgia who chairs the subcommittee on the court there. we are going to give you your five minutes as well. i am going to kick it off with this, what is the relationships in the white house between the private corruption of the justices and the public corruption of justice? because you can imagine if we had a squeaky clean justice alito and a squeaky clean justice thomas and so on, they

could still be visiting all of this damage and all of our legal doctrines. somehow to me it seems like it's not just a coincidence and a happenstance that we get the steamroller against all of the legislative output of the civil rights movement, the women's movement, at we get the astounding private corruption of the justices. just wondering your reflections on that. to prove bias in the other side

would probably settle. so the pattern is very, very telling. and if you think back to where it agency capture which is court capture came from, began with folks like railroad barons put in their folks under the railroad commission so that the railroad rates and commissions that would be exactly what the railroad owners wanted. so the model fits, the pattern fits, and what else fits is that where there is a discrepancy between where conservative doctrine would take you and where the interests of the billionaires behind the scheme would take you they check the conservative doctrine, kick it to the curb and go with what they know is wanted, there's probably no better example of that than citizens united which

is about the least originalist historically based decision you could possibly imagine. >> it has nothing to do with the original meaning. >> if you want to find the original you have to look to the defense. >> the right wing does seem to be very anxious about what's going on in america today because american people reject all this. people understand the idea of an umpire calling balls and strikes is that justice roberts put hearings before you, they know that umpires don't put up flags of one of the teams and umpires don't have their wives lobbying to overturn the results of the last game, and they know that empires are not given million dollar chips by the owners of the specific teams and so on. so they've got a real problem. but what they are saying now is that we are violating the separation of powers bythem to be the judge in their own case and decide about their

own ethical impartiality to make specific supreme court decisions. what about that, you have thought a lot about that, is this an assault on the separation of powers that the american people and their representatives in congress are trying to get a hold of this ethical crisis? >> it is no more an assault on the separation of powers then congress providing ethics and disciplinary rules for executive branch officials would be. which we do all the time. >> and we've done for decades. >> in fact we have seen senior executive branch officials get criminals for 18 usc 1001 false statement violations for failures to gifts and emoluments that are pretty minor when you consider the scale of the billionaire gift program for the amenable justices. >> and if we are not supposed to have these overlapping checks

and balances, why do we have the power to impeach supreme court justices and convict them? why do we have the power to control their budget and the power to control the appellate calendar and their appellate jurisdictions? that argument seems overwrought to me. i want to ask you about judicial recusal. there has been a clamor in the country to try to get justices alito and thomas to recruits from -- recuse from january 6 related cases before the supreme court right now. one relates to president trump's extraordinary indication of the idea of absolute former presidential immunity from prosecution for crimes that may have been committed while in office and the other relates to interpretation of a particular statute. but i have been advancing the idea that the department of justice could seek a writ of mandamus to try to get the supreme court to compe these

federal officials who are the supreme court justices to's -- to recuse themselves in accordance with very clear supreme court case law and doctrine, chief justice roberts has come out very quickly and said, no, that cannot happen the court is not going to get involved, what is it we can do to try to vindicate the very intuitive notion that no judge no person should be a judge in his or her own case? >> the most obvious thing that we could do would be to make sure that there is proper and honest fact-finding about what actually took. the baseline for any process of law is proper neutral fact-finding. everywhere you go, government officials are subject to proper fact-finding when claims are brought against them, except for nine individuals who are the

supreme court justices. and we have seen this play out in the recusal context because justice thomas has refused ever to disclose what the facts are about what he knew about his wife's insurrection activity and when he knew it, which is the absolutely set of facts that determine whether he should have recused himself in january 6 related cases. similarly we have seen justice alito discussing his multiple maga battle flags make factual assertions that are demonstrably not true as regards the timing of the in situ and so forth. so just getting the facts right will make a really important difference. in the notion that nobody can go -- a supreme court employee -- then no supreme court staff

attorney could go in and say sir, we've had this allegation about you, we need to settle it. i need an hour of your time to answer some questions. this i a's -- this is a formal statement for purposes of the way the federal law a response to truth telling, could you tell me about this, that in the other and at the end when we are done, would you mind signing the statement? that does not impede separation of powers at all and they could set that up readily, then at least you would have a true statement of what the facts are compared to how everybody else in the judiciary behaves. quick thank you senator for always flying the flag white constitution in a forward direction. i will yell now to miss ocasio-cortez. >> thank you senator for joining us today. you mentioned your opening

remarks is a very crucial mechanism. the judicial conference that the body created by congress in 1922 well over 100 year sicko to it and enforce rules on the judicial branch, the judicial conference was created to address unethical conversations almost exactly the kind seeing in clarence thomas case in samuel alito's case. and it is meant to really sort through, as you mentioned, and make determinations about when these situations arise, but there is a problem here that we are running up against when it comes to the supreme court, and i believe it is that the court has to allow investigations and offer this information and comply with investigations by the judicial conference. and i think that's where we get

to the crux of one of the crises that it is unfolding from the court. which is the role of chief justice roberts in how he presides of the court, the decisions that he is making with this misconduct going on can you tell us about how the supreme court and specifically the chief justice have addressed these scandals and responded to your oversight attempts, and has the court indicated a path forward in terms of how they seem to engage in oversight investigation? like the chief justice is the chair of the judicial conference, he is only member of the court who participates in it and in that role he has allowed the judicial conference to kill off the scalia trick and he has allowed the to investigate justice thomas's

dealings with harlan crow and ongoing investigation right now and he has allowed it to begin the process of cleaning up the secret fake friend and the flotilla's. he could do more, i suspect he could do more as chief justice it strikes me that if this is the court that could take away women's rights to their bodily autonomy by a simple majority, affecting 160 million people in this country, rough numbers they ought to, by simple majority be able to apply themselves the same kind of ethics procedures every judge has to follow. quakes can you speak a little bit as well as to some of the direct engagement between the

court in congress directly, as you mentioned there are oversight investigations happening in the senate from the senate itself and as you mentioned in your opening remarks, that you may have some republican colleagues that are claiming that the supreme court should not comply should a subpoena to issued by congress into the misconduct of the court. i think it's very important for us to understand the crisis that that could potentially present. as three coequal branches of congress, if the supreme court refuses or would refuse to comply with the potential subpoena issued by congress what would be the implications of such a radical act, and what could that unleash on our democracy? >> we may have to find out.

for now, what we know is that the chief justice has declined repeated invitations, both to come to a senate judiciary hearing and even to meet with senators on the judiciary committee to discuss the problems over at the court in the con to discuss the most recent incident with what i call the maggot battle -- maga justice alito intervened without interest -- without an from congress and senate chairman durbin and i a letter withevents. so, they have not been completely incommunicado the way justice thomas has been. i would know one interesting thing about justice thomas's engagement with us. he is generally completely mute when it comes to questions about

ethics and facts, but when the judicial conference exploded the scalia trick, that's the one time when he had something to say. and what he said was, i will complyit and everybody in washington looked at, i will comply and got completely transfixed with that bu as lawyers in the room would know, the operative language in that sentence is, this new rule. the explosion of the scalia trick was described by the clarification, which means retroactive, which means he and justice alito would have to go back and clean up a lot of ms. filings. so the only time he has spoken of the -- these issues said this new himself in contrast of the language actually used in the letter to me by the judicial

conference in the judicial conference is now reviewing whether, when they said clarification, they meant clarification, and if they make that decision, we will learn a lot more about the billionaire gifts program. >> very briefly, so much of the structure of our democracy governance relies on checks and balances, the system of checks and balances between these three coequal branches of government. and, much of that authority of the court, when the court overrules the executive branch or congress, the expectation is thathe ruling of the court. and this comes to a court basis of enforcement and i suppose the question i would pose is if the court does not comply with congress, wet mechanism and

authority do they wish to assert or use to have congress comply with them? >> there is a biting tensionongressman raskin probably knows better than anyone in separation of power between the separation of the branches and the co-inequality of the branches as checks and balances on one another. and that is very much the center of the conversation we were having with the court right now and with some of our republican colleagues who see only the separation of the powers but don't see the koa quality of the checks and balances. >> thank you very much i'm going to move quickly now because senator whitehouse is going to have to leave at five: 15. i will come to you, and then i'm coming to ms. stansberry. hopefully we will get in the others but we will pick up with you guys in the next panel. you are recognized for five

minutes. click senator whitehouse i would like to ask you about dark money. i would like you to discuss with dark money is, who controls it and what is the purpose of this so-called dark money? >> dark money is the rot in our democracy right now. it is controlled by definition, 5 billion and wealthy special interests who have the ability to spend millions and millions of dollars in politics. the motive to spend millions and millions of dollars in politics and that desire to obscure her from the public who they are when they spend it so they cannot be held accountable for their political intervention into our. we have the ability to cure it,

if you read the citizens united decision closely, it stands for the proposition that dark money is corrupting, which is why it went through the elaborate pretense about how all this money would be transparent. so, we can fix it, the disclose act would fix it. that was part of hr one in the last congress when i hope that the voters vote for reform in the coming elections that we are able to pass that villa and clear the dark money out of our politics. as a climate advocate, i watched bipartisanship on climate issues dead january of 2010 from a very robust bipartisan conversation in which the flag carriin for the republican party and that presidential race at a perfectly good climate platform to, like a heart -- heart attack, if that lined up to

january 2010, the the citizens united conversation and no republican in the senate has joined a serious bipartisan climate bill since. so it has a real effect that i think the fossil fuel industry spends a l of the dark money, so they are happy at the situation they created and postponing climate regulation for over a decade. . >> what is this dark money spent on, and how does -- how is dark money utilized to help sway the outcome of supreme court decisions? >> most immediate and direct dark money under the purest definition of the term is money that is spent in politics by hidden special interests. so a special interest spends $20 million to a front group, the front group flips it into a super pac, the super pac then spends it in support of or

against a candidate in ly reports the front group. obviously the big special interests will communicate to the candidate they are supporting. we just spent $20 million for you, it's only the public that's left for you in the dark but it also turns up in the supreme court through these front groups that have low flotilla's who by virtue of not disclosing to the court or to the other parties can obscure the fact that they are really like piano keys on the same piano, it's a concerted effort it's a set of dark many cords that are preventing the argument in harmony to the justices. and if there is one consistency with the right wing justices it's th alignment with what's provided by those dark money groups. i would like to ask you how dark money is utilized to help

sway the outcome of supreme court decisions. for example, in terms of the nomination and confirmation of judges during republican administrations? i would say i've used the phrase that this is the court that dark money built. and it built it through contributions to the republican party, it built it through front groups that were stood up, that don't reveal who their real funding is. who then go out and lobby for issues and file an amicus brief issues and in many ways litigate cases as the re-party -- real party in interest. they will find a party of convenience to be the nominal plaintiff, but those of us who are lawyers know usually the client goes to find a lawyer. when you've got cases for which the lawyer is fighting a client to bring a case, that's a little

bit of a red flag. so it comes through throughout this whole scheme effort. >> thank you to the ranking member fischer having this hearing because the american people deserve answers and accountability. and not only are we seeing an ethical crisis in front of the supreme court, but it's really an institutional crisis because it's about our democracy, the paration of powers coequal of government and their role in american democracy. i want to be clear from the top that this is one of, if not, the

most blatantly political and activists courts we have ever seen in american history. i we today captured by special interests, dark money and mega donor and involved in transforming the very fabric of american rights to democracy has been every decision. abortion clean air act, clean water act climate change, soon to be executive authorities, and presidents that have stood for decades and generations back into the 19th century, but it's not just the courts, we've also seen it here in congress. the same dark money interests and mega donors we are talking about appear before us through their proxies every single day on the witness stand. in fact we have had witnesses that are funded by the very same donors we are talking about here today that are driving narratives that undermine the legislative branch, the very

sa institutional democratic ad and ideas that americans have held dear for so long. and we have seen it time and time again. i think it's important for folks to understand as we have been discussing here, this is not a coincidence. this is something that has been built over a decade by these mega d and the organizations that they founded and they fund. the co*ke brothers, the divorces, the harlan crow's, and those they funded like donald trump and the supreme court justices that they advocated to be appointed to and then funded the campaign to make sure they got through the senate confirmation process and also funded the public campaigns to ensure that they got there. while -- meanwhile, please justices and their families have been going on multimillion dollar vacations on yachts and private planes funded by the very same billionaires while they have the actual business in

front of these courts through these dark money organizations. but, i want to just say you don't have to take our word for it because a picture says a thousand words, or in this case, a 4 million dollars dark money contribution to your supreme court justices. here we have justice thomas with harlan crow, who incidentally was representing a witness in front of our committee just a few weeks ago. leonard leo and peter rutledge on vacation together. here we have justice thomas and ginni thomas with harlan crow in indonesia. another cute picture of them in indonesia. look, here is ginni thomas at and as we all know, not only is she a mega supporter of donald trump and funded by the same organizations in the justice project that has business before the court that her husband sits on, she helped to plan the january 6 insurrection.

and here we have justice alito on a fishing guided ship with paul singer, another mega donor. here they are, they caught some good fish yearourse, as we all have seen in the last couple of weeks, these flags flying outside of justice alito's beach house right after january 6 in his own personal house aligned with of course the stop the steal january 6 movement. and here is the entire cast of characters brought to you and funded by dark money in their candidates right here with donald trump and ginni thomas and their appointees. it is fair to say that we not only have a traditional crisis but an actual crisis in the very institutions that underpin our democracy. that is what we're talking about here.

that is part of why i am cosponour bill senator which mr. johnson is leading on inich is why i introduced a bill with representative raskin to bring in an inspector general to the supreme court. what the american people really want to know and i get asked this every single day when i am back home as they want some real talk. are we going to get this done? given the political reality of where we are right now. given where this body is at. given where the court is at. how are we going to get meaningful judicial reform? >> the gentlelady's time has expired. >> in the dark days of the early world war ii yearsamerica came in full force winston churchill said to america, "give us the tools and

we will finish the job." i think that's what we need to tell the american voter. give us your trust. give us the tools. and we will finish the job. >> i couldn't have said it better. thank you, mr. chairman. miss stansberry and the distinguished gentlewoman from texas is recognized. >> i am cognizant of your time because i am so thankful not only for your expertise, and i want to tap into that for those that are watching, and don't realize the amazing attorney that you are which allows you to be well informed as you are crafting legislation. i want to make sure we get you out of here somewhat on time. so i will not be reading from my prepared remarks instead i just want to talk about a couple of things. one of the things we have heard over and over especially this

term is this idea of a two-tiered justice system. we have heard that term used in know how many times. i want to walk you through a couple ofand tell me if there really seems to be some differences to specific courts. courts. whether we are talking about the appellate or the trial level. would you agree that there is some form of ethics that is in courts that somehow is absent from your high court? >> that is correct. >> when we look at things such as this idea of when a recusal should be in place. if i walk into a child court right now and i [indiscernible] a recusal should take place we have a similar scenario taking place in georgia state court

where there are those thatace. while the trial court has ruled they have the option of going to an appellate court. in the case of what has been laid out by so many of my colleagues as it relates to potential conflicts because your wife is potentially one of the perpetrators of january 6, or one of the planners, and also, obviously, we have dealt with the upsidegned of solidarity with 6 descendants. what type of recourse do we have when there is a conflict that exists? when i say conflict, i want to be very real about there are people that have never been anywhere near a law school that are saying even a blind man can see. there is an obvious co the recourse on the supreme court. is there a recourse on the court when a justice decides they are

not going to recuse themselves from what needs to be a very obvious conflict? >> at the moment there is not. >> ibe some sort of a two-tiered justice system that's playing out in our country. but it seems like the two-tiered justice system is inuring to the benefit of the highest court in the land from what i can ascertain. as my colleague has already laid out, ms. stansbury, the people want to know what we're going to do. as one of the cochairs for the court reform task force, there is three specific bills we are pushing that we really want to hopefully see brought to fruition. obviously, we're not doing this in a full committee hearing because the people that are running the madhouse right now are not here for it. but we are because we believe

in law and order and overall rule of law. when we talk about things such as expanding the court is there a history in this country of expanding the supreme court? >> it has been done by congress. >> it has been done by congress at least seven different times. the last time was in 1869. i know this isn't necessarily your area of expertise, but would you agree that this country has grown just a little bit since 1869? >> the population has considerably increased. we can agree on that. >> in addition to that, as someone who has practiced in state court and federal term limits exist in some form in a number of state court systems, but we don't have it on the federal level. can you explain to us how potentially imposing term limits on the supreme court could allow

for hopefully some of the harms that we see coming through the court, some of the terrible influence, to hopefully finally make its way out of the court? >> term limits for the court would, among other things, allow for a regular schedule of vacancies. so that the court is not driven by the random impact of -- random fact of who a president is at the time a vacancy emerges. maybe not entirely take it away but make far less credible the effort that was done to stop merrick garland.

and install justice gorsuch in his place. it would make it far more regular and ordinary. and it would make it more difficult for partisan justices to time their departure from the court to make sure their party gets to fill the vacancy. they claim to be completely apolitical but they seem to try to i am the presidency of their own party. >> thank you, ms. crockett. i will come to our distinguished colleague in the judiciary committee for his five minutes. >> i want to applaud you and the democratic members of the oversight committee for convening us today for this briefing. i want to thank our esteemed guest, the honorable senator whitehouse. the public, the american people

owe you a debt of gratitude. before court reform became so popular, you were in the trenches doing the groundwork to point. the data is there. the actions, the activities have been exposed. and the legislation to address those concerns is in the pipeline. i just saw a notice from a news report that ethics legislation will be brought to the floor of the senate sometime this week. will that be the cert act or some other ethics legislation? >> we are having a series of speeches on the senate floor this week. but i'm not aware that a vote has been sched >> well, maybe that report --

>> i think that report was about a floor action that rose to a vote. >> nonetheless i'm happy to be introducing in the house the cert act and the companion legislation in the senate, which you are pushing, and term limit legislation which would address the situation where the right ha hold. and rot tends to take hold in places where there is lifetime tenure with noah penn ability structures in place. e enforcement mechanism that is setorward in the cert act and how it coulns like scalia's flying up the flags is exposed. >> first of all let me say what a pleasure it has been working with you on these issues. we have worked very well together and very closely

together and i very much appreciate your advice and advocacy and friendship through all of our common work. the most important thing is that it directs the court to establish a process for its own ethics review and if it refuses to then we provide one. it remains to be clear an ethics enforcement program executed within the judicial branch. they don't have to come over to congress. this is not that kind of intrusion into the separation of powers. but at the moment, the situation is that if you have an ethics complaint about a member of the supreme court, there inbox to take your complaint. there is no clerk on the others' line of the inbox to sort out

the legitimate complaints from the nutty stuff. the legitimate complaints have no place to go within the court to be evaluated. there is no process for any justice to have to answer any question ever about what the actual facts are. there is no ultimate report that is ever provided about what the actual facts are. and there is no opportunity for any neutral body safe the judicial conference itself or a panel of the judicial conference to take what the report declared and compare it to the rules as they enforce them throughout the federal judiciary and say this doesn't measure up. all of that can be built. l of it would avoid the accountability chasm that is at the heart of the supreme court's

ethics problems. >> without congress taking action, is it your opinion that the chief justice does nothingvent the chief justice from ordering an of a complaint that may come to be filed against a justice such as establishing a tribunal within the judicial conference, to investigate and make recommendations? i would think brought administrative authority to do that. he may choose to set up the process separately and then execute through the process. he may wish to seek a majority vote to see that he has the support of the court in doing so. there is a lot of flexibility and i don't want to comment in too much depth. but he is the administrative

chief of the supreme court. and he is the chair of the judicial conference. between those two offices, he holds broad judicial authority and the responsibility to see to it that the judicial government branch operates ethically and properly and with accountability and with transparency. he has those responsibility and he has the tools to achieve them, i believe. >> mr., thank you for joining us. senator whitehouse, thank you for working so hard. thank you for being an unflagging champion for the constitution and the rule of law. >> i'm grateful for the attention that you all have provided to this issue. look forward to working with you in the month ahead and perhaps even more happily in the congress ahead to put this problem behind us. >> we will bring up now our

second panel. when we pick up with questions we will start with the people who were not given a chance yet. that includes mr. connaught. i see mr. goldman has joined us. please welcome to the dais alex aronson, the executive director of court accountability. he previously was the chief council to senator whitehouse on the senate judiciary committee. he is an expert on dark money in the court system and a policy expert on judicial ethics. kate shaw is a professor of law at the university of pennsylvania. she focuses on reproductive rights and justice. she worked in the obama white house counsel's office. she cohosts the supreme courtfocused podcast called strict scrutiny.the director of strategic legal advocacy and earth justice. she focuses on anticipating trends in judicial doctrine including the scope of federal power and judicial agency actions. we work with the u.s. department

of justice office of legal council. welcome to all of you. each of you will be recognizedinutes. mr. aronson, we will begin with you. >> ranking membe and vice ranking member of casio cortez thank you for holding this important roundtable. the far right's capture of the supreme court poses an urgent threat to our democracy and shared prosperity. i am heartened that you are giving it the attention it deserves. my name is alex harrison cofounder and executive director of court accountability. we founded court accountability last year to sound the alarm about the right wing court project. our goal is to stop judicial exposing and confronting corruption and anti-democratic abuses of power. this roundtable is an important step in that direction. the supreme court's right wing super majority did not come about organically. the justices who took away reproductive freedoms made it

harder for historically disenfranchised communities to vote and overturned a environmental protections. came to power through a 50 year special interest campaign backed by self-interested billionaires and installed through unprecedented constitutional norm breaking. this campaign was designed to undo the social and economic progress of the 20th century. in turn fringe legal theories into constitutional law that binds us all with roots to the brown v. board of education of the project came with significant investment into the legal academy and other drivers of elite influence. the aim was to install anti-democratic modes of most notably originalism as the dominant forms of legal interpretation. these investments build a pipeline of ideological movement lawyers, loyal to their benefactors and eager to be installed as life tenured federal judges. loyalty providing half million dollar

yacht voyages and free trips on private jets became a no-brainer for the justices. this roundtable comes a critical moment. justice financial corruption justice alito's brazen flag-waving displays of partisanship, the complicity of chief justice roberts and failing to rein in maga given the american people well-founded to doubt about the court's impartiality. let me be very clear. it is heartbreaking that the american people are so quickly losing confidence in their supreme court. but they are right to be doing so. these far right justices have delivered victory after victory to dark money interests at the expense of everyday people. some of these conquests like dobbs which overturned roe and unleashed assaults on women's reproductive rights, or limiting

the ability of states to protect people from gun violence are all obvious. dobbs is just the beginning. we can expect further attacks on reproductive freedoms based on theocratic theories like feudal personhood to ban abortion nationwide by declaring it unconstitutional under the 13th amendment. it would foreclose any legislative effort to protect reproductive freedoms. some of the court's other award for its right-wing backers are lessmore subtle but no less harmful. the epa deployed the major questions doctrine to curtail the government's ability to protect people from pollutions and other harms preyed on issues of voting lines start money reliably uses his power to deliver victory to its allies. although it remains the high water mark for rulings, the

court treatment of the trump insurrection case almost rises to that level. by agreeing to consider his immunity claim and delaying its ruling, the court has already ensured that trump's most serious federal trial will not occur in the laughter election. in doing so, these maga justices have arguably given trump his biggest campaign contribution to date. if patent is prologue, we should not hold our breaths for them to disclose the gift. justice clarence thomas refused to recuse himself from the trump case, even though his wife ginni thomas, was an active participant in the scheme to steal the election. another justice, same bill alito, who was lying not one but two maga flags associated with a deadly insurrection has refused disqualify himself, defying the clear dictates of federal law. these unaccountable justices have made a mockery of justice and a lasting damage to the legitimacy of our supreme court. look for answers, this question becomes what

congress, the people's branch, can do about all this. the answer is a lot. enforceable ethics codes and gift bans are a great start and i commend senator whitehouse and the committee for advancing legislation to make it clear that congress has a roll. term limits would go a long way toward restoring the court. congress should also use it is constitutional power to strip or limit the federal courts jurisdiction to overturn pro-democracy legislation like the freedom to vote act and right to funding bills like the codification of roe. a trump judge recently affirmed there is no question that jurisdiction stripping is constitutional and there is recent bipartisan precedent for it. >> congress should exercise its inherent authorities to disabuse

justices that it lacks. i am hopeful and inspire that you are taking the initial steps needed to start the process. >> thank you for your testimony. professor shaw, five minutes. >> ranking member raskin, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. i'm a professor of law at the university of pennsylvania cary law school. i want to focus on the relationship between supreme court and democracy. the recent substantive decisions, outside activities of some of his justices, and the ono inquiries about those activities, the court is conducting itself in ways that are fundamentally inconsistent with basic separation of powers principles feature of our democracy. it is asserting enormous power. it is exercising that power in ways that are hostile to democracy. it is refusing any and all accountability. this is crystal clear, as it is

every june as the country waits with baited breath to learn whether and how the court will append huge swaths of american law. this your questions include whether and how the court will further erode the capacity of agencies to regulate in ways that protect our health and well-being. whether the court will permit government to limit the possession of the most lethal forms of firearms or the ability of dangerous people including abusers to possess them. whether the court will allow the laws passed by congress and signed by the president to be used to hold accountable the individuals charged with the attack on the capitol. including the former president. the court is asserting that it and essentially it alone will decide all of this for all of us. although we don't yet know how we will rule in recent terms the court vis-a-vis the democratically elected actors in government whose work the court is often eager to undo, and it has done this whole signaling that the court is not subject to meaningful checks.

the separation of powers is dynamic not static to affect your grade that is healthy but allowing one set of institutional actors to dramatically expand their authority and resist accountability without meaningful pushback risks permanent damage to our constitutional structure. let me say a few words about tthe court has not only acted in ways that are inconsistent with the role of the court in a democracy, it has undermined basic precepts of democracy. the first panel covered and ranking member raskin talked about citizens versus gore, so i went to her horse all of that. where the court was once understood as largely functioning to facilitate democracy, it's clear this is a court that no longer use that as its primary or indeed a role that the court serves at all. it may be less obvious but equally important is the anti-democratic character of the court's decision in dobbs in overruling roe v. wade dobbs to rest

upon or vindicate principles of democracy. to the democratic process at precisely the moment when the court itself entered the system is unlikely to yield widely desired outcomes. the history and tradition method the court us dobbs is a wildly undemocratic one, binding the recognition of constitutional rights today to a past in which very few americans were meaningful participants in the production of law and legal meaning. this is on display in the courts administered of law cases. the court has weaponized a highly skewed vision of the separation of powers and democracy to fundamentally undermine those values. this is particularly stark in the courts major election cases in which the court deployed this newly artid agencies from acting under broad grants of authority from congress. the court is considering whether to overrule the 40-year-old chevron doctrine and whether to declare unconstitutional much of

agency adjudication. we don't know exactly what the court will do in those cases. but if it continues on its current trajectory, i am confident at towing to curtail agency power and when it does that, it will be profoundly undemocratic. each of the agency power cases i just mentioned involchallenges to agency actions that are the result of democratic choices made by administrations of both parties. iná' some ways more fundamentally, these are direct attacks on the democratic values of equality and pluralism. the cases that i thought to reduce state capacity have been most focused on the center of inclusive and multiracial democracy, financial regulation, labor protection, reproductive rights, environmental protection. let me briefly say a couple of words about accountability, a core feature of theers is that no single institution possesses unchecked powers. there are lots of examples from this court that it no longer believes in th

it believes it enforces sepati subject to it. last july, justice alito told the wall street journal congress did not have the power to relate the court. that is inconsistent with the text of the constitution. the chief justice has usedntational tone but similar substance in his unwillingness to even meet with senators durbin and white house in their efforts to address questions of ethics. it is imperative, my last point, that congress can medicaid to the court that it is serious but questions of oversight, and it cannot let the chief justice have the last word even in that small exchange. allowing the chief justice word to my mind is ratifying the notion that the court is not obligated to participate in the project of congressional oversight. there are lots of ways the committee can follow up with a member of chief justice's staff with questions in writing but it is critical that the chief justice not have that refusal stand. >> professor, thank you for your

excellent remarks. you are recognize for your five minutes. >> thank you ranking member, members of the committee for the opportunity to speak about doctrinal changes the supreme court is making. i want to spend my time discussing how the effort to v-shaped the federal courts during the trump administration are bearing fruit in official decisions right now and what this means for the real people who depend onaws that i work on, the clean air act, the safe drinking water act provide to all of us every day. to start, to their credit i guess the conservative political actors who have the power to reshape the federal judiciary and abuse that power to do so were quite honest about what they were trying to do. 2018 don on the white house counsel spoke at the political action conference and explained that the trump administration

approach to traditional nominations was part of a coherent plan in which judicial selection and the deregulatory efforts of the administration where the flip sides of the same coin. in 2022, senator mcconnell explained that the trump administration use the federalist society as team of potential judges who are of a like mind. now the people in position to take advantage of the reshaped courts have been clear about how emboldened they are to use the courts to advance their agenda. last november, a senior attorney at the pacific legal foundation, a group which de its core areas of work as restricting the authority of federal agencies says that for them money is never a problem. it's more efficient to achieve their goals by litigating, including all the way up to the supreme court. that's more efficient than lobbying with administrative agencies or winning clinical

campaigns. given this set up of well-funded, highly motivated litigation groups and a prime judiciary, it is no surprise that the federal courts are issuing decisions that advance multiple lines of attacks on the way our government is structured now. was in pursuit of what justice kagan described as a broader goal of preventing agencies from doing important work even though that's what congress directed. this set up was how we got decisions like sakic versus epa. had appointed itself as the national decision-maker on environmental policy. in that case, on the clean waterte act. what does this all mean for us the kinds of environmental laws i work with our bedrock

important statues that were designed to allows to solve pressing problems. can we trust that our drinking water won't cause cancer? can we send our kids to walk to school and know that the air they breathe is not going to give them asthma? and on and on. congress know what they were doing. congress recognized the receipt -- these were serious problems, it set clear goals for our country to meet, and entrust to federal agencies to carry out those commands. it did so because it understood that those agencies have the necessary scientific, economic, and technological make sure that congress' commands on these laws are carried out. congress also gave us, the public who has a vested interest in making sure that our water is drinkable and our air is clean, the ability to influence that process. those things are not perfect. this system has led to progress that we can and should be proud of. but in a world where the federal

judiciary make these decisions without giving respect agencies and the statutes that congress wrote and perhaps even looking at them with a skeptical eye going into these cases. the world would look very different. this world is a threat to all of the progress we have made and to our ability to do the work that still needs to be done to meet the goals and the agenda that these laws have set. and that so many faso hard for an that protect us from the kinds of unchecked pollution that puts us at risk. thank you. >> thank you so much for your excellent testimony. we are now going to resume with the questioning. and i want to start off with mr. connor\\ha, you will be recognized for five minutes -- mr. --, you will be recognized for five minutes. >> thank you for convening us. mr. aronson, as you and many others have testified, justice

thomas excepted numerous gifts from harlan crow, including free trips, yachts, private jets, private school. i know sometimes we think this is very complexut it's actually pretty simple. harlan crow then has a real estate firm which has a case in front of justice thomas while he's giving them these gifts. i don't think you have to go to law school to know that this is a conflict of interest. am i missing something? >> no, congressman. you are not wrong at all. i have the federal recusal statute right here. it states that any justi disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned. this statute is implicated by alito's flag-waving situation and it is certainly implicated by justice thomas' willing receipt of, you know, years and years worth of millions of dollars worth of gifts from a real estate magnate who has direct and indirect interests before his court. i think it's more than reasonable to conclude that his

impartiality might be questioned reasonably, by this decade-long relationship and by the happy acceptance of all this, you know, free luxury travel. >> justice alito, to your point he h flying in front of his house. i respect his first amendment rights. he says he cannot tell his spouse what to do. i cannot tell my spouse what to do. but that's not the issue. right? the issue is, should he have a stop the steal flag in front of his house and then be presiding over a january 6 case? it doesn't seem like you have to be in law school to say, you can have a flag, but you cannot then adjudicate a case that is about whether the election was stolen. am i missing something? >> i don't think you are missing something. justice alito has been a sinuous and trying to deflect blame just as justice, su -- justice thomas has tried to deflect blame.

a reasonable observer looking at the facts, and to your point congressman, justice alito does not contest that the flag was flying outside his home. he does not contest the political significance of the flag. he said it was his wife's decision to fire the flag. 's conclusion that no reasonable observer would be able to question his impartiality is just flatly false. >> i just want to say that the supreme court justices have taken 344 gifts valued over $3 million. i mean, congress is pretty broken but we are limited to a gift oftotal unaccountability for the supreme court. professor shah, you may not know this but do you know the average age that a supreme court typically leaves the supreme court? >> i don't know. >> it is 78 years of age. do you know the number of years they typic s 28 years. longer than any point in american history. my question for you is, would

you say that a court that has an average age of 63 within the average age leaving 78, that the justices serving for two or three decades may explain why they are so blatantly out of touch with the most basic facts of modern life including abortion rights, lgbtq rights, and contraception? >> i think having younger justices on the court would be a salutary development. think it's a commission of a massively powerful supreme court and life tenure and lack of accountability that are the brew we are experiencing. i think that's one aspect of what is so broken about the supreme court right now. >> are there any requirements in the constitution the saloon appointed to the spring court for life? i know you have to be a judge for life but is there any requirement you have to be on the supreme court for life? >> holding office behavior has -- and life tenure is how we have interpreted that. that's how we've always understood the constitution.

>> it could be somebody on the supreme court, has term limits, then goes to a circuit court is a circuit judge right? >> i think there's a very strong argument that our ordinary un of life tenure could be implemented in a different way. it could be implemented in a way without constitutional memo whereby a justice would serve her term on the supremejudge on a lower court without requiring an amendment to the constitution. i think that's an argument that has a lot of merit. >> do you think it's reasonable to have term limits for supreme court justices given their pension for fancy gifts the more years they stay and given how out of touch they are with the basic norms of modern america? >> i also think that in a competitive context almost every state has term limits are asia units for the super court justices and there are good, pragmatic reasons for doing that. i think the pragmatic reasons are strong and their argument that one could do without requiring a constitutional amendment, which under article five is virtually impossible today. >> thank you, professor shah, and congressman khanna

further questions. we are limited to50 gifts not $250. in fact, it's a good opportunity. >> may be in the silicon valley, it's different. >> when another distinguished gentleman from california takes no gifts at all, which is why -- we know the distinguished gentleman from california takes no good sadow, which is why. he does another congressman ocasio-cortez and i are writing legislation to apply the $50 gift been, which works fine in congress, to the spring court itself. and we are going to be unveiling that this week. and which are not recognize our great colleague from florida maxwell frost, for his five minutes of questioning. >> thank you so much to ranking member raskin and vice ranking member ocasio-cortez. the integrity of our judicial system is something i have had to focus on pretty intently in florida, especially of reason. we had a state attorney who

was out of office just recently. the stacked state supreme court was just completely compromised. throughout the case. we will see what happens in november with reinstating her and the will of the voters. the supreme court issued a landmark ruling in the berlin decision which raises major concerns about the influence of dark money from wealthy right-wing donors. the broken decision, which struck down a new york's century-old lot requiring individuals to demonstrate special need to carry a concealed weapon represent a major shift in the second amendment and the way we interpret it. this decision is championed by big gun lobby players like the nra and some of the biggest contributors are billionaires like charles koch and leonard leo. leonard leo spent at least $950,000 to overturn affirmative action by paying the plaintiffs and outside groups who wrote supporting bruce. and dark money groups backed by leonard leo also support tens of

millions of dollars in the funds dedicated to dismantling voting rights and promoting gerrymandering in the wake of shelby county versus holder, which got it the voting rights act. the recent adoption of a formal ethics code by the supreme court lacks the robust and for cyber -- mechanism we need and the revolution surrounding justice thomas and his undisclosed vacations fund highlight the need for more accountability and transparency. there's been a lot of reporting on the influence of dark money as it relates to the court and specifically justices thomas and alito. for those who are not familiar, can you discuss a little bit on the influence that the nra and dark money networks have had on justice gorsuch and justice kavanaugh' confirmationss? >> i am not going to be able to cite chapter and verse. but there have been in recent confirmations, there's been a significant increase in money spent by outside groups, the nra and many others. i think that in some ways, the story of the transformation of

the second amendment goes back much further than the recent confirmations of president trump's appointed to the supreme court and begins with the 2008 case of district of columbia versus heller on the 2022 berlin decision date -- bruin decision that you mentioned. a very broad-based multiplatinum effort4÷ that involved a lot of expenditures of funds and development of scholarship and sort of a movement to change americans' understanding of the second member. the amendment has a well-regulated militia being necessary to the keeping of the state. that was understood as securing a right consistent with or exercised in conjunction with militia service until the court fundamentally in the heller decision changed that. the nra i think across a lot of different platforms, involving both money but also assuaging of various sorts, fundamentally changed the meaning of this key provision of the constitution. the court supercharged that interpretation of the second

moment. money is some but not the entirety of the story of the transformation of the second moment and of the meaning of many provisions of the constitution in the last couple of decades. >> on second amendment interpretation, how do you expect the court's decision to impact stay and local gun revelations like those in florida? >> it ties the hands of government, whether we are talking about the federal, state or local government, it makes it very difficult to successfully defend a firearms law against a challenge against the const -- under the constitutionyou can point to a specific type of regulation that looks like the regulation under review and in the case of interventions that are only needed to because firearms and firearm violence looks different today than it has looked historically, it's going to be virtually impossible to find a historical antecedent that's going to satisfy this test. it's a test that seems kind of devised to lead it to the invalidation of most fireas laws. we will see what the court does in the case. there's also the cardinal case, two important gun cases.

rohini could involve some running back of the maximalist logic of bruin. it makes it difficult to enforce many for gun laws. >> a lot of folks are looking for, will this poor the supreme court back from the opinions that dark money donors are championing? >> it's hard to say. i think in some ways, the justices and donors are kind of ores rowing in the same i'm not always convinced there's a clean causal story of donors buying outcomes and decisions. i think certainly there's a relationship between the two. i think taking seriously the imperative of imposing accountability mechanisms on the justices will yield outcomes in jurisprudence. whether that's a direct result of curtailing funding or not. >> of course>>. thank you so much. we should be talking about ethics as it relates to people on the court right now but also looking at the confirmation process and how dark money influences the united states senators that will end up confirming the people that get in the courts. that's how we see a lot of that dark money also influence

actually who sits on the court versus the decisions they make was they are already on it. i yelled back. >> thank you outstanding questions and answers. i would now like to recognize congresswoman busch, our distinguished colleague from st. louis. >> thank you. thank you ranking member angus king and vice ranking member ocasio-cortez for convening this important roundtable. we are here to tell some hard truths about the myth of impartiality of supreme court justices. many of my colleagues have -- the measly ethics standards. is it appalling that justice alito and his wife showed public support for the stop the steal movement in the days after january 6 after the insurrection while the court was ruling on the 2020 electionabsolutely. andyesterday provide a revealing glimpse at their extremism.

but this scandal we not just the latest example of the long-standing corruption and the extremism of the right wing injustices. the truth is the supreme court has never been completely impartial. they were not impartial in 1857 in the dred scott be sanford case, a case arising out of my district of missouri where the supreme court decided black people cannot be considered american citizens. no surprise because the dred scott court had four people who enslaved black people on it. justices, i am calling the names, james moore wayne, peter daniel, john campbell, and john petrone. the u.s. supreme court went, was not impartial in 1927 when a value genesis justice oliver ash avowed eugenicist wrote the decision upholding the forced sterilization of babies or in bauer v hard trick displayed

quote an almost obsessive focus on hom*osexual activity, unquote according to their own. justice, justice harry blackmun, in his dissent. on led them to greenlight the criminalization of gay and lesbian relationships in that decision. i could go on and on. but in the interest of time, the sooner that we accept that the emperor has no clothes obvious truth the better equipped we will be to put in meaningful safeguards to protect from people with bias. at minimum justice alito should recuse himself from all cases reted to the 2020 election. the senate judiciary committee should investigate. and depending on the facts there should be an impeachment inquiry, as is true for justice thomas and his many, many

outrageous scandals. but both justice alito and thomas can spread themselves, they can spare the federal judiciary and our country from furtherbut we obviously, we cannot count on these men to do the right thing. this is a -- this is why i along with my codes, have introduced the judiciary act. bringing the bench from nine to 13 justices. this is one of the many crucial reforms into to almost limitless power these corrupt justices yield. we know that the corruption of the supreme court, it affects us all. and in the next month, including its blatantly pro-insurrection wing will rule on access to medication abortion, the rights of on house people and trumps claims of immunity against ecution in connection with generate six. their lack of neutrality has been so in refuted we documented -- irrefutably documented that if congress wants to restore confidence in the judiciary, it

must -- professor would lack to ask you -- like to ask you about the decisions that these far right, corrupt justices are handing down. what does this mean for real people like in st. louis? can you talk about the real harm that are caused on our communities by these scotus decisions? >> i mentioned in my opening some of the impact, the regulations that have been targeted in some of the latest administrative cases. i will say a couple of words on the abortion cases on the court's docket right up. the court is considering an outlandish challenge brought in texas to mefford prestone, one of the two drugssed in the medication abortion protocol with the most tenuous of claims, a legal right to be in court challenging th and regulatory decisions. and get, a district judge in texas sided with them on both their ability to be in court and their substantive claims of an bill dooley of the fda's approval.

the fifth circuit ruled that back to a degree but did agree that some of what the fda had done, loosening restrictions on access, was unlawful. the case never should have been allowed to be heard in the first voice. the supreme court is currently deciding what it's going to do with that case. take most likely, the standing analysis is too much for the supreme court to even accept so that case will be thrown out on stand grants. mephiprestone will remain available. that another -- there's another case. that case could well be 4 -- be before the supreme court in a year or two. are talking about access to after needed, widely used medication ' of ending a pregnancy across the country on the court has the ability to render that essentially unavailable to all americans potentially in this decision but sternly in a decision within the next year or two. that's one example of the kind of cases and the kind of stakes we are talking about. >> thank you so much>> professor sure. professor sure. .

>> i recognize>> the distinguished gentleman from new york for his five minutes. >> [indiscernible] but i want to touch upon this most recent issue related to justice alito. as you probably know, congressman johnson who was here earlier, and i lead a letter along with to justice alito bring out the obvious and clear conflict of interest he had under any code of ethics, and as well as the constitution and federal law. at the same time, senator whitehouse and senator durbin also wrote to meet with chief justice roberts in response justice alito santa a letter back to all of us. and it is quite a remarkable letter and i am sure that you will agree.

mr. aronson, you discussed it a little bit. e first thing i would point out is, um, there is no mention of any of the court' precedent on this issue. there is no mention of the fundamental notion that no one can be the judge and jury in his or her own case. which has been applied to judges' decisions on recusal, right? there is nothing in his explanation that addresses those issues correct? >> there is not. >> you're talking about the federal recusal statute, which applies to anydge or magistrate judge. is there any way to interpret that as to exclude supreme court justices? >> no, congressman, a very specifically applies to supreme court justices. >> in his letter justifying why

he's not recusing, justicelito sitcites to the supreme court's, and i intentionally used air quotes, ethical code of conduct, which is nonbinding and nonenforceable and uses the standard in the supreme court's code of conduct, which says that it justice should disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the justice's impartiality might reasonably be questioned. and then in the code of conduct there an example of that. that is the identical language, is it not, to subsection a of section 455, right? >> correct. >> i agree with you wholeheartedly it is a basta

rdization of an analysis of whether or not anybody could reasonably question his impartiality. i want to go to subsection b of the federal statute, which he does not address. and in this subsection b it states that he shall disqualify himself in the following circ*mstances. subsection one, where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party. now, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and blame everything on his wife, because i suppose you could make an argument that he has not exhibited a personal bias by his wife hanging a clearly political flag on his house. but there are also revelations where they are not in a g d the that his role in the political -- his role and the

political landscape right now as and he very clearly puts himself on one side. is that what your understanding of that recording and the reporting in the rolling stone is? >> i think that's a fair interpretation of that recording. i think given the kind of vague you know, context of that recording, i would not hang my hat necessarily on recusal of b1 as strongly as the first provision mention. what i think there is certainly an argument that he should recuse based on personal bias, particularly given what we know of samuel alito's, you know, long-standing partisan affiliations and, you know, allegiance to the outcomes and goals of the republican party's agenda. >> and to be clear we are talking about an effort to overturn an election. a very particular political event. so, he would not have to recuse in every case if he had some political bias. in my last couple seconds i want to point to another section here which he does not address

nor do i think he could explain. which is subsection b5, which refers to either the judge or his spouse is known by the judge to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding. baseon what we know, even assuming it is all mrs. alito, am i correct that it is pretty clear that mrs. alito, at a minimum has expressed an interest in the outcome of the two january 6 cases? >> i'm glad you brought up that provision because i think it is directly relevant to questions of recusal in the trump insurrection case. i think the question depends a bit on the legal precedent for whether that would constitute an interest in the outcome of the proceedings. but that provision very clearly applies to the spouse of justice

thomas, who we know was mateal witness in the january 6 committee and who was directly involved in trump's stop the steal movement. a very clearly requires justice thomas' disqualification even more so than it might require justice alito's. >> great. thank you. i think as i turn this back over and my over long time, the fact that justice alito thinks that he can just submit an explanation, self-serving explanation without any independent investigation without any independent accountability without any vetting of the facts especially as we have now seen that one of the fact witnesses has disputed his account, is part of the reason why i introduced the supreme court ethics and investigations act elastic which would create an independent office of independent counsel which is so,

so sorely need. i think the ranking member for you bet. thank you for your leadership and passion on this. i am got to return to our distinguished, beloved colleague for massachusettsu, ms. presley for five minutes. >> i must thank ranking member raskin and vice ranking member ocasio-cortez. very apt description, i think given the secrecy and corruption of far right justices that has been happening in the shadows. but i am a firm believer that sunlight is the best disinfectant and we need transparency. while republicans have ignored the crisis, today's hearing is critical for lead in the apparel can test the american public know how extremist on the right are organizing across branches of government to enact wholesale, widespread policy violence. have you heard a project 20 35? >> congresswoman, yes, i have -- 2025? >> yes, i have. >> manifesto that has hundreds of pages of extremes policies to destroy the

federal government as we know it. everything from a national abortion ban to eliminating the department of education to mass firings of civil servants to be replaced by partisan sycophants. >> mu of thi focus has been on agencies and the federal branch but it also implicates the judiciary. if the supreme court will back them. that's where people like dark money racketeer leonard leo stepien. the senate judiciary committee recently subpoenaed leonard leo as part of the supreme court ethics investigation. can you explain briefly why leonard leo is under investigation? >> i believe mr. leo is un in the selection of decades worth of right wing judicial nominees, which is not the direct target of inquiry but for his involvement in the

scheme to reward these judges and justices with luxury travel, vacation, private jet trips half $1 million yacht voyages to indonesia and the like. investigative reporting has placed leo at the center of this billionaire justice matchmaking scheme. >> that's right. leo is the connective tissue between many of the ethics sc to when he helped clarence thomas' confirmation and the discrediting and smearing of anita hill. let the record reflect that i still believe you, professor help. leo's work to undermine democracy goes beyond the supreme court. he has used his dark money network to fund project 2025 to the tune of almost $50 million. the on the way the heritage foundation is able to promote their antidemocratic agenda is through funders like him. leonard leo is reported to be behind lawsuits for the spring court to end chevron deference.

can explain why that matters when it comes to harmful policies from a conservative administration? >> yes, congresswoman. i am so glad you brought up project 2025 and its intersection with the court. it is no coincidence that the very same collection of dark money entities, over 100 groups that have sponsored project 2025 and its sweeping plans to repeal the 20th century there installing installation of,, you know personnel and reorientation of our policies are the same ones that have been behind the decades on court capture scheme. the agendas are connected in very direct ways that my co-panelists have sort of touched on in terms of the attacks on the administrative state and in terms of plans to install a almost monarchical vision of the executive branch drawing on a vision called unitary executive theory.

it was advanced to support president bush's despicable torture program. >> project 2025successful if the court allows it. we need a binding and enforceable code of ethics. we need investigations into justices samuel -- samuel alito clarence thomas, brett kavanaugh, and any others with a record of impropriety on the highest court of a nation. we desperately need court reform. i would just love for people to make it make sense for me that justice alito cannot tell his wife or to do but he can tell me what to do with my body. make it make sense. thank you. >> thank you for your powerful questioning and testimony . coming to the distinguished gentlelady from michigan for her five minutes. >> thank you so much. thank you so much to ranking member raskin and our amazing vice chair, ocasio-cortez. this is so incredibly important

because i get asked about this all the time in my district, i really do. i know they call it the ethics crisis here in washington, d c. but do you know what they call it in detroit? may be any of you can guess? i don't know, ranking member raskin or vice chair ocasio-cortez, what do you think detroit calls it? do you think they call it a correction crisis? >> they probably call it a correction crisis. >> that's right. that's exactly what they call an. >> we both talk to people. >> they don't even call or justin -- justice clarence thomas justice clarence, they call him corruption clarence. they are fed up. when you look at the definition of corruption, i don't know if y'all looked it up, difference between the definition. you got corruption, dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery. so, i would love for you guys to all, so we already know some of these.

right? so 20 years, no reporting at all by collection, i'm going to call it corruption clarence, 20 years. all of a sudden, we find out 38 destination vacations, 26 private jet flights, six helicopter flights, and multiple yacht trips from republican billionaires, billionaire mega donors like crow and others. and then you get to justice alito, what, some alaskan fishing trip? how is that not corruption? this is not an ethics crisis. the american people knows what it is. its corruption. its bribery. that's why they are yelling impeach them, remove them. any other person on any other job when it comes to any of my residents would be gone in an instant. and so, you know, for me, i think we should begin to call it

what it is, out of respect to the many people that are impacted by this -- directly impacted by this. i got you, girl. director, i have to tell you, i come from a community where we had a right to breathe campaign where i thought smelling like so far -- sulfur dioxide, all that smell was normal. when i think of all the work where you have to do to address the climate crisis but really to address the fact that right now even under current processes, my residents called permission to pollute. we have oversight. is it really stopping them from gettingwhere we haven't residents that are putting white crosses in front of their homes because they, you know, the white cross campaign, if you have cancer, survived cancer or died of cancer, you are told, put the white cross so people can whole neighborhood had been under literally paying the 12 investing so much in fossil fuels. this is a predominately black and brown community.

i want to hear from you and i think it's important. i know my residents feel. what does it mean? if you look at the civil rights act, it got watered down by the courts, it got weaker because of the courts. we cannot even have disparate impact because there's a threshold. why is the chevron deference important to the average american? >> i think at the most basic level, this doctrine, i would just laid out very quickly, it's idea that congress right statutes and tells agencies to carry them out. and imprison in that is the idea that the agencies are supposed to take first crack at addressing any questions that come up. just to give you an example of the types of questions that come up and the statutes that i work on and that you are referencing in the clean water act and the safe drinking water standards act, these statutes refer to things like, what is the best practicable technology available to control pollution?

it's complicate a term that is not necessarily have an answer you can find from looking in a dictionary. congress told agencies to figure it out, to apply their expertise, apply their technical knowledge and to listen to input from the public. all the chevron deference from excess is when an agency does that right, foll process applies its best judgment and it reaches a reasonable conclusion, courts, which are not in a position to do any of those things should defer to the agency interpretation. that means when groups like your constituents go to an agency with some progress before the agency that has a direct impact on their health, into sticky or with the doctrine of the chevron deference. it's more likely to be a real victory that lasts and it's subject to the details by some judge somewhere in the country. it really does make a difference for all of us. we >> have a correction crisis >> on literally an entity that could really impact our residents. i go into some of my schools and there is literally garbage bags over their drinking fountains.

garbage bags over their drinking fountains. shirley chisholm, the first african-american woman to serve in congress, used to say children cannot learn if they are hundred. childrenannot learn if we are posing them. it's the water and so much more -- if they are hungry. children cannot learn if we are poisoning them. it's the water and so much more. now we are going to go ahead and allow this unchecked, unfettered ink in many ways corrupted for quite a while making these decisions that impact our residents. thank you again for this hearing. i think it is so important. thank you. >> chair now recognizes the gentlelady from pennsylvania. >> thank you. vice ranking member and of course gratitude to you and iraqi member for holding this really important discussion that is increasingly clear we will not get from our republican colleagues. as someone who spent a little bit of time in law school and since then in getting a little bit of flashback from our particular and specific our conversations will be, i'm going

to try to have a layman's conversation. because demystifying the court is actually one of the most important things that we need to do right now. as we are looking towards project 2025 or all of these other issues, capture of the court, we need folks to really understand that this is not as complicated as they might think it is. in september 2020, chief justice roberts said he does not understand a question about super courtsince then, we have seen document cases of joseph is -- justice is being wined and dined by billionaires. they are failing to recuse themselves in cases where their wives are embroiled. they are displaying insurrectionist flags, as we heard, outside their houses all with zero consequences. whether we like it or not, the supreme court is absolutely in a legitimate crisis. you can code a correction crisis, ethics crisis, a legitimate crisis.

that does not just mean approval of -- that's the approval of the job itself they are doing. the court tried to placate us by adopting a court of ethics. if a justice violates one of their adopte investigates that violation? >> there is no provision in the ethics code that provides for any investigation of the justices. they leave it up to themselves to self police. >> what are the consequences then of a violation and who would enforce thosences? >> congresswoman, the supreme court has made clear that they don't think that they can be held accountable, either by congress, or by the judicial conference, which does regular and disciplined the conduct of lower no one to hold them accountable. >> we officially function, it just serves as a way to keep people -- to get people to stop complaining. we have to take continuing education classes in ethics and we can be disbarred suspended.

there are many mechanisms to hold us accountable. when a lawyer violates in ethics will, who investigates that? >> every state has its own bar disciplinary authorities so there is a different process in every state on the process gets invoked if there an ethical violation. >> what about when a state court judge violates their ethics code? > the mechanism varies state to state but there are state disciplinary bodies that do have significant more. investigative and enforcement authority. there have been a couple of episodes involving arguably abuses of those disciplinary proceedings targeting justices from popular statements that unpopular statements or rulings. that can be abused -- unpopular statements or rulings. that can be abused. it exists and it's a meaningful mechanism. >> how about when a member of congress is accused of an ethics relation? who investigates and enforces that? >> i think the chair would. >> vice ranking member raskin might know the answer to that. we do have an ethics committee. so the rest of the legal

community and members of congress are subject to actual ethics standards and enforcement. no matter how effective they are, they do exist, and get our supreme court, the supreme court of the land, was lifetime tenure, has decide td't need that level of scrutiny. we don't need to go into how a bad actors weeks late the system -- would exploit the system, we are singing right now. can you tells how charles koch and leonard leo have helped to fuel litigation and court ruling that have limited our ability to mitigate the devastating impact of climate change? >> i'm not an expert on the financing side of things. when i can say is that in many of our cases we see multiple groups raising the same kinds of legal arguments and it's just impossible to look at the briefing objectively and to say degree of coordination and a significant amount of resources going into coming up with the arguments like the major questions doctrine, like setting

the stage for over deference that are detrimental to efforts to address climate change and other pressing environmental impacts. >>. thank you we have seen reports knowing that co*ke has featured clarence thomas in at least one inclusive meeting with his closest donor allies along with leo elio has arranged luxury travel for clarence thomas and alito to meet with billionaires. we are about to go and vote. mr. erickson -- mr. erickson, -- >> as congressman raskin has proposed that the justice department do to disqualify them. ultimately it would still be up to the justice themselves whether to recuse themselves from the case. if i could amend my last answer just a bit. there is a process willful failure to disclose, your know, financial disclosures and refer those questions to the attorney general. the attorney general to several to play. >> thank you -- the attorney

general does have a role to play. >>. . thank you we should not be living in this alternate reality that believes our supreme court is free of corrupting influences at this moment were climate, reproductive justice, voting rights, protections for trans and queer symptoms and fundamental guardrails against racial discrimination are all under threat. this court is being wined and dined by the very same people that profit from this pain. we must call it out for what it is and seriously address this corruption that exist in our legal system. thank you again for being with us and thank you again for convening us. >> thank you for such an excellent set of observations and questions. panelists, you guys have done a fantastic job and you can see why i am so proud of the democrats on the house oversight committee. they are called the troop squad -- truth squad ever since they debunked and demolished the ridiculous impeachment drive against president biden. today, we are the truth and justice squad. let me just follow up one

question and i will see if ms. ocasio-cortez has any final thoughts. i want to follow up on something that was prompted by miss lee's question. which is we have had a lot of in american history at every level the state level, the federal level, the trial level, the appellate level, who have done things wrong. we have had judges who have taken bribes and been impwe've had judges who have sexually harassed clerks. we have had judges who have engaged in party activity. we have had judges who have owned human beings as enslaved people. sell there is magic about being a judge or a justice. do any of you believe that there is some reason that we shouldn't have an ethics code that binds judicial officers the way we have binding ethics codes on legislative officers or

executive officers? is there any reason? yes? >> i think there is reason to have higher standards for justices who are supposed to be impartial and to hold themselves above reproach. as we've learned from this past year's devastating scandals and are very clearly not living up to that higher standard that they should be living up to. >> yes. professor shah, do you have any final thoughts? >> i think the rules of the road have basically been trust us. i think the public has maybe been willing to make that bargain when they believe the justices comported themselves in a noble and honorable fashion consistent with the rule of law. i think there's every reason to believe that maybe that was never the case, it certainly is not the case now and certainly there's a more pressing need for some more formal mechanism. >> it's certainly not the right time when we have such unequal justice come out of the court in such sharp wealth inequality in society where people lead to different kinds of legs. we made one poster, if somebody

would put it up. with the average amount of money spent on a family vacation and do not -- what's the average amount of money spent on a family vacation in the united states? i think it was around $3000 if you go to disney world for a long weekend with your family. is that right? $2840 is how much is spent on average american family's vacation. one of justice thomas' 38 sugar daddy sponsored vacations was more than $500,000. and i'm sorry, but if you are making $300,000 a year from the taxpayers, pay for your own damn vacation. what about you? any final thoughts? >> oh, as i think i could put it any better than professor shaw did. >> did you have any concluding thoughts? >> one of the major takeaways and what is important about so much of what we've discussed today is that the supreme court

is a stones throw away from this building. they are nine justices that wear robes but they are not gods nor are they priests >> and this idea that there -- priests. idea that their authority is self generated and they are accountable to no one or nothing, is not just drug, it is one of the most direct and dire threats to american democracy today. because any dairy -- a degree of authority without accountability is a seed of tyranny and it is a seed of authoritarianism. and resting that play out today and the stripping of rights on bodily are tana me of women and people across the country in the stripping of labor rights and labor movements from people across the country, in people's right to drink clean water and breathe clean air. the constitutional and democratic crisis and threat that this current corruption

crisis on the court present is a threat not just to american way of life and american democracy but it is a threat to our lives. people have died and are dying after the dobbs decision. people have died and can die with the rollback of environmental provisions. in the dumping of pfa's an toxic waste throughout the united states. these are our lives on the line. and the corruption crisis presented by the court is not just an offense to our democracy, it is not just an offense to our morals, this is about people's lives on the line. and who are being sacrificed for greed and for what? and so i think the take away for us today is that the responsibility of this harm is not just solely on the court. it relies in congress. it lies in congress.

because it is not just whepower where our democracy fails it is a when there is a lack of accountability and standing up and response to an attempt at turning that our democracy fails -- at tyranny that our democracy fails. that is why it is important while we had accountable he january 6 and an attempted insurrection and involvement to overturn the results of the united states presidential election. and it's why we need to have truly important sweeping, and strong response to the crisis of corruption on the highest court of this land. and with that, i yield back to the ranking member. >> thank you for that, ocasio-cortez. the senate gets to render advice and consent on supreme court nominations, judicial nominations. we don't have that constitutional power. we have the power to impeach for example. but we nonetheless have a very

powerful institutional interest in integrity on the supreme court. and we are going to exercise our power and we are going to exercise our responsibility to help oversee integrit in the judiciary. i want to thank my colleagues for doing such an outstanding job today on this. all of us who aspire and attain to publicer it's the legislative branch, the executive branch, or the judicial branch are nothing the service of the people. whether your title is president or congresswoman or senator, we are all servants of the people. none of us is above the law and none of us is above the and all of us must remember that we are ultimately serving the people of the united states. i want to thank our distinguished panel for your terrific presentation. we want to thank our colleague senator whitehouse, for coming

over and talking about the work that has been such a labor of love for him for many years now. and i'm glad that some new people have been tuning in from around the country to this very impo and we are picking up some traction we are going to be able to make a lot of changes in the weeks and months and years ahead, so thank you all for participating. and with that, this session is adjourned. [gavel smash] [indiscernible chatter]

[indiscernible chatter]

>> so we are right up against the lawlessness in this court. >> can you talk about the senate judiciary committee? there's been some criticism that they are aggressively enough to rein in the court.

>> there is news coverage on how they are bringing the ethics coverage. the problem on the senate side [ indiscernible] [indiscernible chatter] >> the actions that they know are going to fail? you are talking about bringing the ethics bill, white house ethics bill, republicans. how important are those most to kind of put the stake in the ground versus? >> i think it is extremely important. i, mean the public will not understand any representative or senator who is blockading ethics reform on the supreme court. i would not want to be that republican senator who decides to sabotage it.

>> do you think -- justices should be on the table? >> i think we should use all the tools available to us, any tools available to us but we have to always follow where the investigations go and make sure we weigh. >> the republicans to hold in contempt of the attorney general of the united states for not 100%. i think he has complied with the subpoena, at least 99%. as i was saying at the end there, all of us are public servants whose roles are defined by the constitution, so none of us is beyondd it is scary that there are people in the republican party that are talking about us entering a close constitutional america. they are acting as if those of us in government or power are unbounded by law, and that's just intolerable. >> given the roadblocks you are

facing from the republicans what do you think of basic, practical steps that should be taken on the supreme court and the ethics issues? >> that's why aoc and i are planning to introducepply the $50 gift ban that all of us in congress are subject to to the super court. it works very simply. none of us taken give settle. we don't take a -- subprime court. it works very simply. none of us takes any gifts at all. the idea that there is any ambiguity about that on the supreme court as outrageous. >> we have time for one more question.

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