Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin was clearly peeved at the absence, as Democrats suggested the high court had passed up numerous chances to act on its own.
Senate Democrats trucked ahead Tuesday in seeking more ethics oversight at the Supreme Court, hosting a high-profile hearing despite would-be star witness Chief Justice John Roberts declining to appear.
“How low can the court go?” Durbin asked. “This is not the ordinary course of business. … We wouldn’t tolerate this from a city council member or an alderman. It falls short of ethical standards we expect of any public servant in America and, yet, the Supreme Court won’t even acknowledge it’s a problem.”
Lawmakers have introduced a series of bills aimed at increasing ethics safeguards and transparency at the high court. But Tuesday’s hearing amounted to a tacit admission from Durbin and Senate Democrats: Their best shot at getting justices to address simmering ethics concerns is to step up public pressure.
on their ethics practices. There was little new in the document and it stopped well short of creating either a formal ethics code or a mechanism for enforcing it, as Democratic lawmakers have called for.
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