By Joan McCarter
Daily Kos Staff
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin issued a sternly worded statement Thursday calling on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection. The New York Times reported that an upside-down American flag was seen flying at his home for several days following the attack on the Capitol.
This follows a similar call from Durbin for Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself on these issues, and it will probably be heeded by Alito as much as it was by Thomas: not at all.
Enough talk, Mr. Durbin. It’s time to do something.
“The court is in an ethical crisis of its own making, and Justice Alito and the rest of the court should be doing everything in their power to regain public trust,” Durbin said in a statement Friday. “Flying an upside-down American flag, a symbol of the so-called ‘Stop the Steal’ movement, clearly creates the appearance of bias.”
While all of that is true, it will likely be ignored by Alito and the one person who nominally has the power to enforce the court’s toothless code of conduct: Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts already failed to rein in Alito during a separate recusal demand in which Alito had been gifted an op-ed by The Wall Street Journal, a clear conflict of interest.
It’s time for Durbin to make a very big stink about Alito’s—and Thomas’—blatant abuse of ethics and debasement of the Supreme Court with public hearings.
That includes enforcing the committee’s subpoena issued to Leonard Leo, founder and former director of the Federalist Society and—thanks to multimillion-dollar campaigns in support of his hand-selected right-leaning nominees—the architect of the current conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Last fall, the committee authorized subpoenas to Leo and Harlan Crow, a Texas billionaire and Thomas benefactor, which took months to be issued. When it finally happened last month, Leo said that he would refuse to comply.
“Mr. Leo has played a central role in the ethics crisis plaguing the Supreme Court and, unlike the other recipients of information requests in this matter, he has done nothing but stonewall the committee,” Durbin said.
Durbin added that Leo's "outright defiance left the committee with no other choice but to move forward with compulsory process."
Then do it.
Instead, Durbin has been spending energy on plotting a bipartisan agreement on the blue slip process for appeals court nominees that gives home-state senators veto power over judicial nominations. It’s been a political process abused by Republicans since the Obama administration, and, as it stands now, Durbin is moving appeals court judges without blue slips but has retained the practice for district courts.
And sure enough, Republicans like Missouri Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt are blocking President Joe Biden’s nominees. That just demonstrates that a bipartisan agreement wouldn’t even be worth the paper it’s written on.
It’s time for Durbin to start focusing on how to save our democracy from a corrupt Supreme Court.
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