Saturday’s New York Times piece details disturbing allegations that the conservative Supreme Court Justices, and Justices Alito and Thomas in particular, have seemingly long had inappropriate contacts with litigants and extremist conservative political interests. Hints of justices consorting with rightwing activists is old news and why for years AFJ has been demanding Supreme Court ethics reform. Each new revelation – a few drinks, inappropriate hunting excursions – meant renewed calls for ethics reform.
However, this is different. Saturday’s report suggests something more sinister: that some of the justices are acting in concert with conservative movement leaders, leaking opinions, signaling outcomes, and back channeling. This is disturbing and devastating. The rule of law cannot survive if the judiciary ceases to be independent. We now have the first genuine sign that the Court’s independence has been profoundly compromised.
The time to act is now. Some of the steps we are taking include:
1. AFJ and allies are jointly calling on Congress to immediately hold hearings into the allegations and renew bipartisan efforts to pass Supreme Court ethics reform.
2. AFJ is seeking meetings with the White House Counsel and Department of Justice. There must be a coordinated effort at every level of the legislative and executive branches to assess the threat. We will remind them that Justice Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, credibly sought to overthrow the 2020 presidential election – perhaps the most noxious assault on our democracy of the last century. The new special prosecutor should be given free rein to explore the Court’s connection to and possible support of extremist, anti-democratic groups. We cannot rely on leaks and whistle blowers and a slow drip of appalling malfeasance. A full investigation must happen now.
3. AFJ is inviting our 150 member organizations to participate in a war room on investigating and countering the Court’s extremism. An independent judiciary is the foundation of our democracy and critical to every issue our members advocate for – we must band together. AFJ is calling on all our members, and our allies in the progressive movement, to lend their expertise and their constituencies to join us in this fight.
4. Longer term, AFJ will dig deep with our litigating members and partners to seek the disclosure from the justices of any relationships with the parties and demand recusals whenever there is even the slightest demonstration of impropriety. And if they refuse, as they usually have, we will call into question every resulting decision and make clear our intention to do so. This could prove destabilizing to the rule of law, yes. But the Court has compromised to such an extent that we have good reason to question the integrity of every decision.
This democracy will only survive if we fight for it. The Trump presidency and January 6th insurrection shocked us out of our complacency and led to historic investments of time and resources to defend our rights. How we respond to the corruption of our court and judicial process will be just as critical. The rule of law is the foundation of everything. If it is fatally compromised, the centre cannot hold.
