In remarks on the Senate floor last week, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) spoke about
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NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. President, this last weekend, I held six town halls in six rural counties, and in town
00:06hall after town hall, people kept asking, what happened to the Supreme Court?
00:11How did it become so corrupt?
00:14Why hasn't the Chief Justice reined it in?
00:17Well, these six town halls, these were not an anomaly.
00:20I've held 25 town halls previous to this weekend, this year, and again, in community after community,
00:29all want to know, how has it occurred that the Supreme Court has squandered its integrity?
00:39Well, they are alarmed about the members of the court taking special favors, gifts worth
00:48millions of dollars, wait, did I say millions of dollars?
00:52Surely, thousands, not millions.
00:56Yes, the justices have taken gifts worth millions of dollars.
01:03The Fix the Court group has documented the gifts since 20, let's see, over the last 20
01:11years, 2004, valued at $6,592,657 to 18 current and former justices of the court.
01:23One justice alone, Justice Thomas, taking gifts valued, 193 gifts valued at over $4
01:31million.
01:33Justice Alito accepting gifts valued at over $170,000.
01:40How is it possible that the highest court in the land has sunk to such a low level?
01:51Those gifts, $300,000 luxury RVs, fishing trips to Alaska, super yacht trips to Russia
02:00and the Greek Isles and Indonesia, well, the court did respond.
02:06They responded earlier this year by releasing their own code of ethics, a publicity stunt,
02:13a code of ethics with no teeth, a code of ethics with no enforcement, a code of ethics
02:19that completely fails to address the obvious conflicts of interest and breaches of public
02:24trust.
02:26Justice may be blind, but we cannot turn a blind eye to these injustices.
02:35Congress and the court are separate but equal branches of power.
02:40And it's our job to check and balance one another.
02:44The Supreme Court certainly should have issued for itself a compelling code of ethics, but
02:53it has not.
02:54And so the balance is for us to do it for them.
03:00It is our responsibility to do it, to protect them from their own common instincts of taking
03:08gifts that they should never touch.
03:12So the Supreme Court Ethics Recusal and Transparency Act will require a strong and enforceable
03:18code of ethics for the Supreme Court so that all Americans can trust that cases between
03:24the court are being decided impartially based on the facts of the case, the letter of the
03:31law and the principles of our We the People Constitution, not based on relationships forged
03:40on super yachts and fishing trips and gifts of $300,000 RVs.
03:49Who here, if you were called to defend yourself in a suit in court, would feel like you're
03:56getting a fair hearing if the party that brought the suit against you has been giving thousands
04:03or millions of dollars to the judge hearing the case?
04:07Who here would think that you're getting a fair hearing?
04:11No one.
04:13We all understand that this is corruption.
04:17We all understand that this is a horrific conflict of interest.
04:22And we all understand it's unacceptable and the court has failed its responsibilities
04:29to the American people.
04:31The Supreme Court, it has to stand for the interests of the people, not the powerful.
04:40Think of these life-altering cases being decided by the court on reproductive rights, on worker
04:47rights, on voting rights, on environmental rights, on LGBTQ rights.
04:55So we need, the American people need transparency.
04:59They need legitimacy.
05:01They need accountability.
05:04We, the American people, need justice unpolluted by gifts from parties having issues before
05:14the court.
05:15So I urge my colleagues, let's all stand together, all 100 of us, and stand up for the integrity
05:20of the court and pass the Supreme Court Ethics Recusal and Transparency Act.
05:26It is my pleasure to yield to my colleague from the state of Delaware, Senator Coons.