In remarks on the Senate floor last week, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) spoke about the state of the Supreme Court.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I rise to urge this body to reconsider the objection that was just made by my colleagues.
00:07The rule of law, the system of ordered liberty for which so many Americans have served and
00:14sacrificed at home and abroad, is a fragile thing, is at times a mere tissue, and it is
00:22held together by the confidence of our people in the ethics and integrity of those whom
00:29they elect or who are appointed, nominated, confirmed to serve them.
00:35We've seen a number of challenging chapters around ethics and integrity in public service
00:40recently, but tonight we're on this floor to speak about our Supreme Court and a simply
00:47shocking series of revelations about ways in which justices have accepted over years
00:56huge amounts of gifts.
01:00The suggestion's been made by a number of my colleagues that this is just Democrats,
01:05that this is just a partisan attack on a few justices to try and roll back or undermine
01:12decisions they've made we dislike or their legitimacy.
01:15Well, I can give you a compelling counterpoint.
01:20My friend and colleague Senator Cornyn and I, seeing a whole series of stories in the
01:25Wall Street Journal in 2021 that revealed that there were dozens of federal judges who
01:31had stock holdings in companies where issues before them implicated the value of that company,
01:40moved us to introduce the bipartisan Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act.
01:47Your typical bill takes six, seven, eight years to become law here in the Senate.
01:53This one moved faster than almost any other, and on the Senate Judiciary Committee and
01:58here on the floor of the Senate, nobody argued that the Supreme Court needed to be above
02:03it all.
02:04Nobody argued that the justices of the Supreme Court shouldn't be required to disclose their
02:10stock holdings and be accountable for their failures to recuse or disclose.
02:15In fact, that bill passed unanimously.
02:21Why then is this one not similarly situated?
02:28Every federal judge is subject to a binding code of ethics.
02:34Every senator, virtually every federal employee of a senior decision-making role is bound
02:42by a code of ethics.
02:43That's how the American people know that if there is some slight or fault, some self-dealing
02:50or some action that creates the appearance of impropriety, that action will be taken.
02:56And after months and months and months of reports of misconduct, failure to disclose,
03:03questionable conduct by a justice or two of the Supreme Court, a recent poll by Marquette
03:10shows that a majority of the American people have lost faith in this institution and no
03:16longer have confidence in the political independence and the ethics of our Supreme Court.
03:23Mr. Chief Justice, I hope you listen or watch.
03:27We believe you to be concerned about the legitimacy of this important institution.
03:34The Supreme Court is the only federal court not bound by a code of conduct that is enforceable.
03:40And where these disclosures and their consequences cannot be acted upon, the highest court in
03:47our land should not have the lowest ethical standards.
03:52And we should take a vote on this bill, the Supreme Court Ethics Recusal and Transparency Act.
04:00It should not be controversial or partisan.
04:03This isn't about attacking one justice or another as someone who clerked for a federal
04:09judge, as someone whose chief counsel clerked for a federal judge.
04:13Many of us are lawyers in this body and clerked for federal judges.
04:18We know the importance of having an independent judiciary, of having a nonpartisan judiciary.
04:24And the most powerful court in the land is the Supreme Court.
04:29When it issued landmark decisions unanimously, it moved the arc of history.
04:36Today, it issues decision after decision that are 5-4 and that are producing challenging
04:43secondary waves in our body policy.
04:46If the Supreme Court is to hold the role that our framers intended, it must do so above reproach.
04:54That is not where we are today.
04:57Our Supreme Court must make itself accountable to the American people.
05:01We shouldn't read disclosure after disclosure in the press to learn about the conduct of
05:08the justices.
05:11Just a few moments ago, earlier this evening, along with the rest of the Delaware delegation,
05:16I had the honor of meeting with the newest nominees to our nation's service academy.
05:23Young men and women who are raising the right hand and volunteering to serve our nation,
05:28who will be granted the opportunity at a free education in exchange for which they
05:33sign on the dotted line and agree to go serve our nation at home and abroad, and to defend
05:38our nation and our Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
05:45I have just completed a trip to the South Pacific where I visited Manila.
05:52And there, there is a World War II cemetery that includes crosses marking the graves of
05:5717,000 Americans who served and sacrificed in the convulsion that was the Second World War.
06:07Those crosses do not mark on them Democrat or Republican.
06:11The freedom for which they fought, the system of justice, the rule of law, the Constitution
06:18for which they took up arms against Imperial Japan, and worked so tirelessly alongside
06:24our allies to free a world under assault from fascism and imperialism, did not do so
06:32based on a sense of partisan principles, but out of a commitment to our nation.
06:39We should honor those who served and sacrificed in a generation or two ago and those who are
06:46willing to serve and sacrifice today going forward by restoring ethics and transparency
06:52to the United States Supreme Court.
06:55They have cast a shameful shadow, not just the appearance of impropriety, but a genuine
07:01conflict.
07:03It can be resolved.
07:05We must help them take the action they should take and resolve it.
07:10We should pass this bill.
07:11With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.