Supreme Court corruption gets a Senate spotlight

The Senate Judiciary Committee considered Supreme Court ethics reform legislation Thursday, passing the bill in committee on a party-line vote. The legislation is bitterly opposed by Republicans even though it simply requires the Supreme Court to abide by the same ethics restrictions that every other federal judge—and all elected officials—have to live by. Republicans on the panel were so worked up about this you’d have thought the committee was considering impeaching all of the conservative justices rather than saying that they should probably disclose when a super-wealthy friend takes them around the world for free on his luxury yacht.

Republicans threatened dozens of amendments, though they ended up offering only a handful. These ranged from Sen. Thomas Kennedy’s effort to make all the Democrats look like racists by inserting a passage that condemns racist language against Justice Clarence Thomas (and only Thomas) to Sen. John Cornyn’s amendment to allow all federal judges to carry firearms to protect themselves. They gave up after only having a handful considered, to the relief of everyone. The Republicans were predictably shrill in defending the indefensible and hypocritical and in doing so, proved that the court they’ve constructed is undeniably political.

The Republican senators defended the Supreme Court as “conservative” and derided the idea of making the court abide by the same ethics standards as everyone else, saying that would be “far left.” Their performance was as shameless as ever, particularly when it came to circling the wagons around Thomas. Their defense of Thomas was so impassioned that one could justifiably wonder if they were playing to an audience of one: Leonard Leo and his checkbook.