{"id":27642,"date":"2023-07-30T12:56:54","date_gmt":"2023-07-30T19:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=27642"},"modified":"2023-07-30T12:56:55","modified_gmt":"2023-07-30T19:56:55","slug":"wrong-and-frightening-alito-claims-congress-cant-regulate-scotus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/07\/30\/wrong-and-frightening-alito-claims-congress-cant-regulate-scotus\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Wrong and Frightening’: Alito Claims Congress Can’t Regulate SCOTUS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Supreme<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito testifies during a U.S. House hearing on March 7, 2019 in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo by Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What a surprise, guy who is supposed to enforce checks and balances thinks checks shouldn’t apply to him,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

JESSICA CORBETT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jul 28, 2023 (CommonDreams.org)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While conservative Justice Samuel Alito’s new Wall Street Journal<\/em>interview<\/a> covered various topics, one that provoked intense ire on Friday was his suggestion that federal lawmakers don’t have the power to regulate the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a series of Journal<\/em> opinion pieces\u2014the first was published<\/a> in April\u2014Alito spent four hours speaking on the record with David B. Rivkin Jr., an attorney who currently has a case before the high court, and James Taranto, the newspaper’s editorial features editor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest piece comes after ProPublica<\/em>revealed<\/a> in June that Alito took a previously undisclosed 2008 fishing trip to Alaska on a private jet belonging to hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, an excursion organized by Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ProPublica<\/em>‘s reporting prompted Alito to defend himself<\/a> last month with his own Journal<\/em> opinion piece and his vacation was among the mounting ethics concerns regarding justices that led<\/a> Democrats on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee last week to advance Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-R.I.) Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act without any GOP support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pointing to the panel’s vote, Rivkin and Taranto wrote Friday:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Justice Alito says he voluntarily follows disclosure statutes that apply to lower court judges and executive branch officials; so do the other justices. But he notes that “Congress did not create the Supreme Court”\u2014the Constitution did. “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it,” he says. “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court\u2014period.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do the other justices agree? “I don’t know that any of my colleagues have spoken about it publicly, so I don\u2019t think I should say. But I think it is something we have all thought about.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

“This is wrong and frightening,” declared<\/a> Sherrilyn Ifill former president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund. “Justice Alito\u2014and I’m certain not only Justice Alito\u2014believes that the Supreme Court is a branch of our [government] that is unchecked and unaccountable, and unreachable by the power of Congress.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ifill was among many legal experts and lawmakers who took issue with Alito’s remarks, with many citing the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

love to be an originalist or a textualist or whatever who somehow has never read the section authorizing the existence of his court https:\/\/t.co\/fJKSm19wz5<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/2Djn9nZeiB<\/a><\/p>— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) July 28, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote>