630
Alito ‘stunningly wrong’ that Senate can’t impose supreme court ethics rules
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
630 points (97.7% liked)
politics
19104 readers
2423 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Each branch checks the other two and keeps them in balance. I thought we all learned this in high school? Or at the very least I'm sure Alito learned this, whether he cares to remember or not.
Yes but Congress "checks" SCOTUS by nominating and approving (Senate only) justices, allocating resources for the appellate courts and impeaching justices. Not by regulating their moral character.
An ethics process similar to the ethics process in the House and Senate would not be something Congress could implement without a Constitutional Amendments. In theory SCOTUS could implement it upon themselves (although they lack the power to remove/censure their fellow justices like the House and Senate can do), but they could only request Congress impeach someone who failed the ethics review.
Reread Article 3, please. Congress structures the Courts, and justices hold their positions during "good behavior". Doesn't it follow that Congress can establish what "good behavior" means?
If they aren't physically accountable to anyone then they might as well be the unelected Junta of the United States. Someone has to determine what good behavior actually is, and if it's them themselves then that flies in the face of the entire interdependent system of government we have.
If you go by the strict interpretation of the constitution, the SC isn't even the highest court. It's only the interstate court. They appointed themselves the highest court in a case.
"The court's power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court (1801–1835).[17] Under Marshall, the court established the power of judicial review over acts of Congress,[18] including specifying itself as the supreme expositor of the Constitution (Marbury v. Madison)[19][20] "
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States
So they basically said "I'm in charge because I said so". That's precarious at best, and it would just take Congress to say "no you're not" for it to fall apart.
I really think this is something that could be argued. You seem to be arguing for a strict interpretation of the constitution rather than a lot of ones we see today that have changed repeatedly and/or made more modern interpretations. A strict interpretation would also mean that the supreme court doesn't have the power to decide if laws are constitutional or not as that's not specifically in the constitution nor granted with an amendment.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-3/
Congress shouldn't be able to implement arbitrary rules on the Judicial branch any more than the Executive branch should. Internally, SCOTUS already has self-imposed ethics rules that are suppose to be followed; similar to the ethics rules in Congress passed for itself.
What do you think judicial power is? The power to hold dinner parties it's? It's literally the power to interpret the law. Its not written because everyone with half a brain can understand that.
Then maybe a super strict “as written” interpretation of the constitution is dumb.
Except that is an "as written" interpretation because it would take intentionally misunderstand to not understand what judicial powers entail. You aren't making a point against anything, just being dumb.