On Tuesday, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) shared their intentions to introduce legislation that could offer more oversight of the Supreme Court.
While speaking with MSNBC, the top House Democrats, who both serve as members of the House Oversight Committee, said they had been working through several concerns with the nation’s high court after several recent controversies.
These include recent calls for Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself over an incident that saw two partisan flags, connected to the “Stop the Steal” effort, flying at his properties, and criticism over Justice Clarence Thomas’s acceptance of numerous vacations, gifts, and tuition payments for a relative from a conservative donor.
Ocasio-Cortez and Raskin said they were now exploring “avenues” for holding the Supreme Court Justices accountable.
“And so, it is not a question…of if Congress has jurisdiction and power over the Supreme Court. It is, what power are we going to exercise in order to rein in a fundamentally unaccountable and rogue court?” Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday night.
Ocasio-Cortez then seemed to take a shot at Thomas and the gifts he’s received, saying the Justices should be held to the same standard as members of Congress.
“Congressman Raskin and myself will be introducing forthcoming legislation to even have the Supreme Court be subject to the same $50 gift rule that he and I are subject to, as everyone else who are members of Congress,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
While the court implemented a code of conduct last year, there has been criticism from many over its failure to uphold the rules it put in place. Raskin hammered home on this, saying that an outside source needs to oversee the ethics of the justices.
“It’s the highest court in the land with the lowest ethical standards. These are the only governmental officials in the land who are not governed by a binding ethics code. There’s no process by which we can hold any of them accountable,” Raskin said.
“And so, we need to clean that up. And that’s why we said we’re going to start with something simple that the whole country will be able to understand immediately and intuitively,” Raskin continued. “We want a $50 gift ban for U.S. Supreme Court justices. They make $300,000 a year. Pay for your own lunch and pay for your own vacation.”
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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) is also working to put forth legislation, saying that he would have something on the Senate floor this week.
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