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Supreme Court ethics hearing exposes deep partisan divide amid calls for transparency and accountability
- Washington Post: Deep divide at Supreme Court ethics hearing, despite some GOP calls for action: A Senate hearing Tuesday on Supreme Court ethics was dominated by partisan clashes, even as some Republican senators suggested the justices should be paying attention to public calls for a more robust and clear code of conduct. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) dismissed legislation to impose ethics rules on the justices as an “unseemly effort to destroy the legitimacy” of the conservative-led court. But he urged the Supreme Court to act on its own by using “this moment to instill more public confidence. We would all be better off it they did that,” the senator said. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) called the hearing after a cascade of recent revelations about unreported lavish travel and real estate deals involving Justice Clarence Thomas and a billionaire Republican donor. He and other leading Democrats, along with advocates for court transparency, have grown increasingly frustrated with the justices’ refusal to set stronger rules for reporting and acting on potential conflicts of interest.
- New York Times: Prominent Retired Judge Calls for Ethics Rules for Supreme Court Justices: A prominent conservative former federal judge joined a group of legal experts on Tuesday in calling on Congress to enact new ethical standards for Supreme Court justices, after a series of revelations about the justices’ undisclosed gifts, luxury travel and property deals. The statement by Judge J. Michael Luttig, a retired appeals court judge revered by some conservatives, was released hours before the Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Supreme Court ethics. Pressure has mounted among progressives for a stricter code of conduct for the justices, the nation’s highest judges, who are appointed to lifetime terms and are bound by few disclosure requirements.
- ProPublica: Clarence Thomas Had a Child in Private School. Harlan Crow Paid the Tuition: In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was far from home. For the previous decade, he had lived with the justice and his wife in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Thomas had taken legal custody of Martin when he was 6 years old and had recently told an interviewer he was “raising him as a son.” Tuition at the boarding school ran more than $6,000 a month. But Thomas did not cover the bill. A bank statement for the school from July 2009, buried in unrelated court filings, shows the source of Martin’s tuition payment for that month: the company of billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow.
- Washington Post: The justices’ ethics are to blame for the court’s legitimacy problems: Former federal judge Michael Luttig submitted written testimony for Tuesday’s hearing, and the conservative jurist got to the heart of the matter. Justices, he wrote, must “conduct themselves in their nonjudicial conduct and activities in such a manner that they are individually deserving of respect — indeed, beyond reproach, not only in fact, but also in appearance. This, at all times and places, in both public and in private.” Can that seriously be said of Thomas and his acceptance of lavish travel, gifts and other benefits from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, year after year after year? The yacht. The private jet. The purchase of his mother’s home. All unreported. (Yes, the law carves out an exception from the reporting rules for lodging, meals and entertainment provided as part of personal hospitality.)
Embattled Former President Trump (again) doubles down on election denialism and other anti-democratic rhetoric
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Independent: Trump goes after Fox for Dominion settlement ‘insult’ to election deniers: Donald Trump fumed at Fox News on Wednesday in his first public comments discussing the Dominion Voting Systems settlement with reporters. The ex-president was speaking with British broadcaster and onetime politician Nigel Farage in an interview when the two broached the subject, typically a topic that conservative newscasters shy away from when speaking to the former president. As he lambasted the network for the “insult” of reaching a settlement with Dominion, the ex-president complained that Rupert Murdoch was “wrong” to believe that he could not successfully defend the conspiratorial nonsense that the Trump campaign was spreading in 2020 (and which Mr Trump continues to push) in court.
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Politico: Trump vows to go after ‘radical Left’ colleges, echoing DeSantis approach: Former President Donald Trump is calling for a drastic expansion of the federal government’s oversight of colleges and universities, vowing to “reclaim” campuses that he asserts are “dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics.” Trump said he would “fire” the existing accrediting organizations that oversee colleges and universities and replace them with new accreditors who would impose a range of new standards on colleges. Under the plan, colleges would be required to remove all administrators involved in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, whom Trump decried as “Marxist” bureaucrats.
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Rolling Stone: Trump Vows to Empower Political Pastors on Christian Nationalist Broadcast: In an interview on a Christian nationalist broadcast, Donald Trump vowed to empower religious leaders politically, by permanently ending restrictions against churches that weigh in on elections. “They’ve silenced you,” said Trump. “Christianity, I believe is being hit much harder than any other religion is.” In his comments, aired Tuesday night, Trump blasted the so-called Johnson amendment, which dictates that nonprofits, including churches, lose their tax-free status if they weigh in directly on politics. “We never enforced it. We essentially ended it,” Trump bragged of his time in the White House, adding with regret, “I wasn’t able to finish it. But I’ll finish it this time.”
In The States
OHIO: House committee moves resolution to make it harder to amend the state Constitution
- Ohio Capital Journal: Ohio House committee narrowly advances 60% supermajority provision despite opposition: In an Ohio House committee, witnesses pleaded with lawmakers to reject the effort to install a 60% threshold for future constitutional amendments. The joint resolution they’re considering would put the question to voters on an upcoming ballot. After breaking for an extended recess around lunch time, lawmakers heard more testimony and voted to advance the resolution. But the 7-6 margin was probably tighter than supporters wanted. All five Democrats on the committee voted against it, and of the eight Republicans on the committee, only state Rep. Brett Hudson Hillyer, R-Ulrichsville, who previously floated amendments to make the resolution more palatable to opponents, voted against it. Elsewhere in the Statehouse, a different House committee set to vote on restoring August elections Tuesday morning delayed its start. Almost six hours later, the chair canceled the hearing.
TEXAS: Bill that would allow state to throw out Harris County election results moves closer to passage
- The Hill: Texas bill allows secretary of state to overturn elections: Texas lawmakers advanced a bill this week that would allow the secretary of state, who is handpicked by the governor, to overturn the results of an election in the state’s largest county and order a new one. The bill targets Harris County, the largest in the state and the third-largest in the U.S., which includes Houston and has a population of around 4.7 million. It would allow the secretary of state, currently Republican Jane Nelson, to order a new election in the county if 2 percent or more of the polling locations ran out of ballot paper for more than an hour.Written to apply to counties with a population over 2.7 million — which only applies to Harris County in the state — the bill follows criticism by Republican lawmakers over polling issues in the county in the 2022 midterm elections. It passed the state Senate on Tuesday, and now must be considered in the House.
- Texas Tribune: Texas House advances bill to eliminate Harris County election chief position: A bill that would force Harris County to get rid of its elections administrator is closer to becoming law after the Texas House Elections Committee approved it Monday. Senate Bill 1750 would abolish the county elections administrator position in Harris County and transfer election duties to the county clerk and tax assessor-collector. The Senate passed the bill, written by state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Republican, on April 18. It will now go up for debate on the House floor. The bill was originally written to affect all counties with populations of more than 1 million residents, but it was changed to focus solely on Harris after Bettencourt’s office conducted a survey of Texas’ largest counties and found that only Harris County had continuous problems, said Rep. Briscoe Cain, who presented the House version of the bill — House Bill 3876 — in committee Thursday.
MICHIGAN: Election denier clerk successfully recalled
- Associated Press: Voters oust Michigan clerk who doubts election results: Voters in one of Michigan’s most conservative counties have ousted a small-town clerk accused of improperly handling voting equipment after casting doubt on President Joe Biden’s election victory. Stephanie Scott lost Tuesday’s recall election in Hillsdale County’s Adams Township to Suzy Roberts, who got 406 votes to Scott’s 214, according to unofficial results reported by the county clerk’s office.
- The Guardian: Michigan township recalls clerk and ally who pushed election denialism: In a rebuke to election denialism and extremism, a small, heavily Republican township in Michigan successfully recalled a clerk who has been accused of elevating election denialism and her ally on the township board. The outgoing clerk, Stephanie Scott, and township supervisor Mark Nichols were replaced by Suzy Roberts, a retired auto industry worker and Randy Johnson, who works in the local school district, respectively. Since 2020, Adams Township and the surrounding county of Hillsdale have become an unlikely focal point in Trump allies’ fruitless search for proof of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Scott, the local clerk, was stripped of her election administration duties by the Michigan secretary of state after refusing to turn over voting equipment for regularly scheduled maintenance. State police later initiated an investigation when part of the voting machine went missing and again when Scott was accused of sharing confidential voter data with a third party.
FLORIDA: Florida voting laws and election enforcement take big toll on residents and alarm voting rights advocates
- Washington Post: The first arrests from DeSantis’s election police take extensive toll: The fallout came fast when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s new election police unit charged Peter Washington with voter fraud last summer as part of a crackdown against felons who’d allegedly broken the law by casting a ballot. The Orlando resident lost his job supervising irrigation projects, and along with it, his family’s health insurance. His wife dropped her virtual classes at Florida International University to help pay their rent. Future plans went out the window. “It knocked me to my knees, if you want to know the truth,” he said. But not long after, the case against Washington began falling apart. A judge from Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit ruled the statewide prosecutor who filed the charges didn’t have jurisdiction to do so. Washington’s attorney noted that he had received an official voter identification card in the mail after registering. The case was dismissed in February.
What Experts Are Saying
Lauren Miller, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, Wendy Weiser, vice president who directs the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law: “Election denial poses an ongoing threat to U.S. democracy. Despite its widespread rejection in the 2022 midterms, efforts to undermine electoral systems have proliferated and expanded beyond Donald Trump’s charge that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. This analysis examines the role that election denial played during the midterms and makes an early assessment of how it will continue to evolve ahead of the 2024 election.” Brennan Center for Justice: The Election Deniers’ Playbook for 2024
Marc Elias, founder of Democracy Docket: “The myth that citizens can out-organize voter suppression is not just wrong, it is dangerous. It minimizes the real world effects of repeated, targeted suppression laws. It shifts the burden from the suppressors to the voters. It suggests that victims of voter suppression simply need to be better ‘organized.’ Sadly, suggesting that citizens can use organizing to defeat voter suppression also fuels a false narrative too many are inclined to adopt. It turns voter suppression and the fight against it into a question of campaign tactics rather than the illegal and immoral deprivation of constitutional rights. Intentional voter suppression is happening, and it is weakening our democracy…The way to defeat voter suppression is by defeating it head on, not by celebrating working around it.” Democracy Docket: We Cannot Out-Organize Voter Suppression
Michael Podhorzer, elections analysis guru: “According to election guru Michael Podhorzer, since the election of former President Barack Obama in 2008, Black turnout in blue states has increased by 1.8 points. In contrast, in Republican controlled states Black turnout decreased by four points. ‘The gap between Black and white voting in the MAGA states increased from being 0.8 points in favor of Black turnout to 7.5 points in favor of White turnout.’…‘Before elections, we can discuss endlessly how different election law changes would advantage one or another party, but it’s taboo to talk about those rule changes after the election unless it’s to disprove that those changes affected the outcome at all.’” Democracy Docket | Weekend Reading: There’s Nothing Funny About MAGA’s Clown Car | Weekend Reading: Red Wave, Blue Undertow
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, historian at New York University: “As an autocratic entity, the GOP would gladly unleash a “shock event,” as I call coups and other cataclysmic occurrences that have allowed authoritarians to damage or destroy democracies. Today’s GOP is a far-right party beholden to a violent cult leader. It no longer respects or operates within democratic norms, having liberated itself from democratic ideas of accountability. And it has no interest in bipartisanship or in sustaining a democratic political system –quite the contrary. The Republicans’ endgame is to convert America into an autocracy, building on the momentum created by Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 coup attempt and state-level assaults on democracy. To this end, party elites and their media allies have orchestrated a campaign to delegitimize a sitting president that has no domestic precedent in its intensity.” Lucid
Headlines
The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections
Washington Post: There remains little value in broadcasting Trump’s comments live
New York Times: Carlson’s Text That Alarmed Fox Leaders: ‘It’s Not How White Men Fight’
Washington Post: Here’s how right-wing media shields Trump from his scandals
Trump Investigations
WABE: Fulton D.A. talks Trump investigation, with charging decisions expected this summer
New York Times: Trump Will Offer No Defense in Rape Trial, His Lawyer Says
Forbes: Trumps Fail To Turn Over Documents In Fraud Case, New York Attorney General Claims
Washington Post: Trump and the Mar-a-Lago documents: A timeline
Reuters: Trump’s lawyers say he should be able to talk about evidence in hush money case
Washington Post: Trump, irritated by questions about Manhattan probe, sought reporter’s removal
January 6 And The 2020 Election
CNN: Special counsel sat in on Pence’s testimony to federal grand jury
New York Times: Former F.B.I. Agent Charged in Jan. 6 Riot
Fox 34: Missouri man gets jail time for Jan. 6 participation
Opinion
Washington Post: How DeSantis accidentally handed Disney a potent weapon against him
New York Times: Why Trump Won’t Let Go of His Dream of Domination
Miami Times: Threats facing Black prosecutors imperil democracy
The Hill: The potential gift tax implications of Clarence Thomas’s luxury trips
In the States
NPR KOSU: ‘Voter list maintenance’ will be conducted soon by Oklahoma election officials
Spectrum News 9: N.C. High Court’s gerrymandering ruling could reshape delegation
MSNBC: Missouri GOP’s dark vision for the future puts democracy on the back-burner
