Keeping in line with his party’s stance, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed a piece of legislation this week that seeks to implement a code of conduct for U.S. Supreme Court justices, according to a post on the lawmaker’s Twitter account. A July 20 Axios article reported that the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the Supreme Court ethics bill along party lines despite Republican opposition.
“The so-called Supreme Court ‘Ethics’ Bill is a leftist political attack in the guise of an ethics bill,” Cruz tweeted. “Democrats are lashing out at the conservative justices of the Supreme Court because they disagree with recent rulings.”
Axios reported that the bill is the Democrats’ effort to address what they allege are ethical failures among the conservative members of the high court, using Justice Clarence Thomas as a reference point.
"This legislation will be a crucial first step in restoring confidence in the Court after a steady stream of reports of Justices’ ethical failures has been released to the public," U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement, quoted by Axios. The measure, formally known as the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, moved to the Senate floor following the 11-10 committee vote.
NBC News reported that not only is Thomas’ purported acceptance of lavish gifts a cause of concern for Democratic lawmakers, but so are claims of Justice Sonia Sotomayor committing ethics violations as well.
“The public support for the Supreme Court is at an all-time low,” Durbin said, according to NBC News.
Republican senators argued that the justices do not require a code of conduct as they could police themselves, the NBC report said.
The GOP claimed the bill is a Democratic attempt to delegitimize the high court’s conservative majority following its decisions to roll back affirmative action as a college admissions tool in June and strike down Roe v. Wade a year ago, according to a CBS News report.