ICYMI: Congresswoman Bush Highlights “Myth of Impartiality” of Supreme Court at Oversight Committee Democratic Member Roundtable
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Washington, D.C. (June 14, 2024)— Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01) delivered remarks at the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Democratic Member Roundtable “High Court, Low Standards, and Dark Money: Flagging a Supreme Ethics Crisis in America”. This hearing included witness remarks from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Alex Aronson, Executive Director of Court Accountability, Kate Shaw, Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, and Kirti Datla, Director of Strategic Legal Advocacy for Earthjustice. The Congresswoman discussed the entrenched partisan corruption in the Supreme Court and its implications on communities like St. Louis. A copy of Congresswoman Bush’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, can be found below or you can watch HERE.
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Congresswoman Cori Bush
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability “High Court, Low Standards, and Dark Money: Flagging a Supreme Ethics Crisis in America”
June 11, 2024
Thank you Ranking Member Raskin and Vice Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez for convening this important roundtable. St. Louis and I are here today to tell some hard truths about the myth of impartiality of Supreme Court Justices.
Many of my colleagues have lamented the clear, egregious violations of the measly newly-implemented ethics standards that exist for the Court. Is it appalling that Justice Alito and his wife showed public support for the Stop the Steal movement in the days after the January 6th insurrection—while the Court was ruling on a 2020 election case?
Yes. And the recordings of them that were released yesterday provide a revealing glimpse at their extremism.
But, this scandal is just the latest example of the longstanding corruption and extremism of the right-wing justices. The truth is no Justice is completely impartial, and no Justice has ever been. They weren’t impartial in 1857 in Dred Scott v. Sanford, a case arising out of Missouri where the Supreme Court decided Black people could not be considered American citizens. No surprise because the Dred Scott Court had four slave owners on it: Justices James Moore Wayne, Peter Daniel, John Campbell and John Catron.
The Justices weren’t impartial in 1927 when avowed Eugenicist Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the opinion in Buck v. Bell, upholding the forced sterilization of people with disabilities or in 1986 when the majority of Supreme Court Justices in Bowers v. Hardwick displayed quote: “an almost obsessive focus on homosexual activity” according to their own peer Justice Harry Blackmun in his dissent. This obsession led them to green-light the criminalization of gay and lesbian relationships in that decision.
I could go on, but in the interest of time—the sooner that we accept this “Emperor Has No Clothes” obvious truth, the better equipped we will be to put in meaningful safeguards to prevent people with a clear bias and vested, monetary interest in the outcome of Supreme Court Cases from deciding those same cases.
At minimum, Justice Alito should recuse himself from all cases related 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 outrageous scandals. But both Justices Alito and Thomas can spare themselves, the federal judiciary, and our country from further humiliation by resigning right now.
But, we obviously can’t count on these men to do the right thing. This is why I, along with my colleagues, have re-introduced the Judiciary Act this Congress, a bill that would add four seats to the U.S. Supreme Court, bringing the bench from nine to 13 justices. This is just one of many crucial reforms needed to dilute and control the almost limitless power these corrupt Justices yield.
We know that the corruption of the Supreme Court affects all of us. In the next month, the Court—including its blatantly pro-insurrection wing—will rule on access to medication abortion, the rights of unhoused people, and Trump’s claims of immunity against prosecution in connection with January 6th. Their lack of neutrality has been so irrefutably documented that if Congress genuinely wants to restore public confidence in the judiciary, it must remove lawless justices, enact ethics reform, expand the Court, and institute term limits.
Thank you all for your time and for the work you do to inform the public about the unadulterated corruption that persists at the United States Supreme Court. I yield back.
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