Democrats see Supreme Court leverage in spending bills

Senior Senate Democrats see the annual funding bill for the Supreme Court as a way to force Supreme Court Justice John Roberts to adopt ethics reforms in the wake of controversies surrounding conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

Specifically, some Democrats want to tie Supreme Court funding to the justices’ adoption of an ethics code in the funding bill overseen by the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over the high court’s budget.

“I think the court is really wildly out of line now, particularly in not even having a process for a fact-finding” for allegations of ethical misconduct, said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts and Oversight.

“Only nine people in the entire U.S. government have no process, and ironically it’s the ones who are supposed to be in charge of process of law, so it’s not a tenable position for the court to remain in, and if it takes a little bit of a nudge from the Appropriations Committee, I would welcome that,” he said of adding Supreme Court ethics requirements to its annual funding bill.