Chris Coons: “I rise to urge this body to reconsider the objection that was just made by my colleagues. The rule of law, the system of…”

“I rise to urge this body to reconsider the objection that was just made by my colleagues. The rule of law, the system of ordered liberty for which so many Americans have served and sacrificed at home and abroad, is a fragile thing. It is, at times, a mere tissue, and it is held together by the confidence of our people in the ethics and integrity of those whom they elect or who are appointed, nominated, and confirmed to serve them. We have seen a number of challenging chapters around ethics and integrity in public service recently, but, tonight, we are on this floor to speak about our Supreme Court and a simply shocking series of revelations about ways in which Justices have accepted, over years, huge amounts of gifts. The suggestion has been made by a number of my colleagues that this is just Democrats, that this is just a partisan attack on a few Justices to try and roll back or undermine decisions they have made that we dislike or their legitimacy. Well, I can give you a compelling counterpoint. My friend and colleague Senator Cornyn and I have seen a whole series of stories in the Wall Street Journal in 2021 that revealed that there were dozens of Federal judges who had stock holdings in companies where issues before them implicated the value of that company. It moved us to introduce the bipartisan Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act. Your typical bill takes 6, 7, 8 years to become law here in the Senate. This one moved faster than almost any other.…”