Sheldon Whitehouse: “first, let me thank the chairman of our committee for attempting to bring this bill to the floor and to get us on it.…”

“first, let me thank the chairman of our committee for attempting to bring this bill to the floor and to get us on it. Even though the Republicans have objected to Supreme Court ethics, it is important for us to continue to make the effort because the American people understand that there is something gone very wrong at the Supreme Court. The objections that we just heard amounted to a long excursion through a great variety of topics: through abortion; through past FBI investigations; through allegations about a two-tiered system of justice; through wokeness; through things we all agree on, like separation of powers and an independent judiciary. I think it would be helpful to actually come into focus on what we are actually talking about here because most of what was said in opposition to this bill is completely irrelevant to what we are seeking to achieve. We all accept the doctrine of separation of powers. Senator Blumenthal, who is here, is an expert in the subject. He has argued more cases in the Supreme Court than any other Senator. To be clear, our bill does not make the Supreme Court subservient to Congress in any respect. The bill obliges the judicial branch of government to create its own ethics enforcement mechanism that will be run within the judicial branch of government by the judicial branch of government.…”