-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, this last weekend, I held six townhalls in six rural counties, and in townhall after townhall, people asked me: What happened to the Supreme Court? How did it become so corrupt? Why hasn't the Chief Justice reined it in?

Well, these six townhalls were not an anomaly. I have held 25 townhalls previous to this weekend this year, and again, in community after community, people want to know how has it occurred that the Supreme Court has squandered its integrity. They are alarmed about the members of the Court taking special favors, gifts worth millions of dollars.

Wait, did I say millions of dollars? Surely thousands, not millions. Yes, the Justices have taken gifts worth millions of dollars. The Fix the Court group has documented gifts since--let's see, over the last 20 years--2004 valued at $6,592,657 to 18 current and former Justices of the Court, with 1 Justice alone, Justice Thomas, taking 193 gifts valued at over $4 million and with Justice Alito accepting gifts valued at over $170,000.

How is it possible that the highest Court in the land has sunk to such a low level? Those gifts--$300,000 luxury RVs, fishing trips to Alaska, superyacht trips to Russia and the Greek isles and Indonesia.

Well, the Court did respond. They responded early this year by releasing their own code of ethics--a publicity stunt. It is a code of ethics with no teeth, a code of ethics with no enforcement, a code of ethics that completely fails to address the obvious conflicts of interest and breaches of public trust. Justice may be blind, but we cannot turn a blind eye to these injustices.

Congress and the Court are separate but equal branches of power, and it is our job to check and balance one another. The Supreme Court certainly should have issued for itself a compelling code of ethics, but it has not, and so the balance is for us to do it for them. It is our responsibility to do it, to protect them from their own common instincts of taking gifts that they should never touch.

The Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act will require a strong and enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court so that all Americans can trust that cases before the Court are being decided impartially, based on the facts of the case, the letter of the law, and the principles of our ``we the people'' Constitution, not based on relationships forged on superyachts and fishing trips and gifts of $300,000 RVs.

Who here, if you were called to defend yourself at a suit in court, would feel like you are getting a fair hearing if the party who brought the suit against you has been giving thousands or millions of dollars to the judge hearing the case? Who here would think that you are getting a fair hearing? No one.

We all understand that this is corruption. We all understand that this is a horrific conflict of interest. And we all understand it is unacceptable, and the Court has failed in its responsibility to the American people.

The Supreme Court has to stand for the interests of the people, not the powerful. Think of these life-altering cases being decided by the Court on reproductive rights, on worker rights, on voting rights, on environmental rights, and on LGBTQ rights. So we need--the American people need--transparency. They need legitimacy. They need accountability. We, the American people, need justice unpolluted by gifts from parties having issues before the Court.

So I urge my colleagues: Let's all stand together--all 100 of us stand up--for the integrity of the Court and pass the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act.

It is my pleasure to yield to my colleague from the State of Delaware, Senator Coons.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source