Two Senators. SENATORS. I am shocked. SHOCKED!
Voters ultimately have to take the rap for putting a pig on a podium.
___________UPDATE__________
As to context, what the whining disslembling was about, AP report carried:
The Supreme Court would have to abide by stronger ethics standards under legislation approved on Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, a response to recent revelations about donor-funded trips by justices. The bill faced united opposition from Republicans, who said it could “destroy” the court.
The legislation has little chance to make it through the full Senate.
The panel voted along party lines to set ethics rules for the court and a process to enforce them, including new standards for transparency around recusals, gifts and potential conflicts of interest. Democrats first pushed the legislation after reports earlier this year that Justice Clarence Thomas participated in luxury vacations and a real estate deal with a top GOP donor — and after Chief Justice John Roberts declined to testify before the committee about the ethics of the court.
Since then, news reports also revealed that Justice Samuel Alito had taken a luxury vacation with a GOP donor. And The Associated Press reported last week that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, aided by her staff, has advanced sales of her books through college visits over the past decade.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin said the legislation would be a “crucial first step” in restoring confidence in the court. He said that if any of the senators sitting in the room had engaged in similar activities, they would be in violation of ethics rules.
“The same is not true of the justices across the street,” Durbin said.
[...]
“It's about harassing and intimidating the Supreme Court,” said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a senior GOP member of the panel.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel, said Democrats are trying to “destroy” the court as it exists by tightening the rules around recusals and disqualifying conservatives from some decisions. Congress should stay out of the court’s business and mind the separation of powers, Graham said.
The bill “is an assault on the court itself,” Graham said.
The legislation would mandate a new Supreme Court “code of conduct” with a process for adjudicating the policy modeled on lower courts that do have ethics codes. It would require that justices provide more information about potential conflicts of interest, allow impartial panels of judges to review justices' decisions not to recuse and require public, written explanations about their decisions not to recuse. It would also seek to improve transparency around gifts received by justices and set up a process to investigate and enforce violations around required disclosures.
[...] Durbin pushed back on the notion that the legislation is about politics, noting he had introduced legislation on Supreme Court ethics reforms more than ten years ago, when the court was more liberal. “The reforms we are proposing would apply in equal force to all justices,” Durbin said.
The current push came after news reports revealed Thomas’ close relationship with Dallas billionaire and GOP donor Harlan Crow. Crow had purchased three properties belonging to Thomas and his family in a transaction worth more than $100,000 that Thomas never disclosed, according to the nonprofit investigative journalism organization ProPublica. The organization also revealed that Crow gifted Thomas and his wife, Ginni, with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of annual vacations and trips over several decades.
Durbin had invited Roberts to testify at a hearing, but he declined, saying that testimony by a chief justice is exceedingly rare because of the importance of preserving judicial independence. Roberts also provided a “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices” signed by all nine justices that described the ethical rules they follow about travel, gifts and outside income.
The statement provided by Roberts said that the nine justices “reaffirm and restate foundational ethics principles and practices to which they subscribe in carrying out their responsibilities as Members of the Supreme Court of the United States.”
The statement promised at least some small additional disclosure when one or more among them opts not to take part in a case. But the justices have been inconsistent in doing so since.
Roberts has acknowledged that the court could do more to adhere to the highest standards of ethical conduct, but he didn't elaborate and has not followed up publicly on that idea.
Abuse of deference can lead to short leashes, (Justice Thomas having earned the shortest.) And that Louisiana Huey Long wannabe, his statement dripped bullshit all over, with accomodating Rafael "Ted" duly nodding in the background.
Decide: Where are ethics least honored; in the Senate or among the Supremes?
Is disdain for ethics the area of greatest bipartishship?
If you could rewrite the Constitution, would you, and in what clear and improving ways?
Crabgrass suggests, make it far easier to impeach and remove creeps.
FURTHER UPDATE: Take the money out of politics, i. e., forestall another Buckley v Veleho, and Citizens United. Be merciless toward those who'd continue buying power.
There is ninety percent of needed reform by that.
Nationalize Right to Vote, eliminate disenfranchisement entirely, and streamline federal resolution of questions of voting qualifications. Nationalize full reproductive and related choice rights among citizens. Go from there.
Dump the electoral college for Popular-Vote-Rules. Wyoming and the Dakotas would not like that; California, New York, Pennsylvania who knows. But make every blue vote in Oregon and every red vote in Nebraska equal via nationwide one adult, one meaningful vote in Presidential elections. Hope that growth beyond two-party dominance might happen, but you cannot make it happen by writing stuff. That reform would have to be bottom up, but curbing nationwide impediments against further parties could be factored into a rewrite.
I'd go unicameral, but that's an open question. Ditto, details of how to reform security concerns and classification of government secrets. Ditto, having a standing army, and curbing size if having one at all. Keep the commerce clause, install a term limits requirement and figure out how to deal with government agency growth, something net contemplated by the nation's founders beyond nationalizing money.
If term limits apply to the top job, they should apply to a judiciary and legislative body. Term limits in agency rank and file, protecting the civil service, where politicization there might be bad for the friction of institutional memory as against a rogue presidency.
Getting too deep into the can-of-worms dimension; which is a concern if a foundational document is rewritten. Commerce evolving, fairness to the poor, regulatory capture are all concerns, but broadly exist now under the terse commerce clause. Micro-engineering a new national order could be worse than slogging through. Judiciary life appointments are problematic, while an elected federal judiciary would be a mess to avoid.
Even thinking about a rewrite shows how vexing wrenching and disjunctive the process would be, to the point where living with what we have is not wholly unappealing.
Making amendment of the foundational document easier is yet another can-of-worms dimension.
Gerrymandering will happen no matter what, but enshrining nationwide numerical equality in legislative districting foundational, Baker v. Carr, has appeal due to a troubling recent Supreme Court tilt to abandon precedent when the majority wants to. Accordingly, keeping Supreme Court sizing from being petrified is a very sound "Don't change that" consideration.
We could go on, but dwelling on a hypothetical has diminishing returns.
And, realize, no level of reform will eliminate fatuous dissembling, beyond having a better educated population to lessen its size. That education aim is easy to state, hell to implement.