Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin raised concerns after the justice’s wife reportedly praised an organization’s opposition to Supreme Court reform.
Justice Clarence Thomas faces yet another call to recuse himself, following reporting that his wife, Ginni Thomas, praised a conservative religious group’s opposition to Supreme Court reform. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., called on the justice to recuse himself from cases involving that group, the First Liberty Institute.
ProPublica reported that Ginni wrote in an email to the group, “YOU GUYS HAVE FILLED THE SAILS OF MANY JUDGES. CAN I JUST TELL YOU, THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH.”
Of course, calls to reform the court — some of which have been endorsed by President Joe Biden recently — have gained traction due in part to Thomas’ ethics scandals.
If this is what independent looks like it doesn’t seem to be working, or you and I have very different objectives.
No, it’s possible that there needs to be some kind of reform, but the solution is certainly not to make the judiciary entirely subservient to the executive.
The judges are free to take endless bribes and rule themselves above the law- and enact the will of businesses over that of normal humans, to our collective detriment. At least my proposal has a clear connection to a popular will, you just think that an actual democracy getting to enact the will of the people would be a bad thing, and that reactionary judges with life terms are something that can be reformed away rather than dealt with directly. I welcome your proposal.
That in no way, shape or form makes it the right thing to do.
Maybe I just don’t have an appreciation for what an “independent” judiciary is for when it’s never seemed to be anything other than an instrument for the wealthy in my lifetime.
If you don’t want a supreme court, then just say that. Having one that is directly correlated with the party in power at any given time is the same thing as just directing questions to the party in power, so why pretend.
It’s a deeply reactionary institution, I support anything that makes a mockery of it.