Sen. Chris Van Hollen says he’s looking “at all the options” for imposing reforms on the court. The Maryland Democrat chairs the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee, the one in charge of the Supreme Court budget. Fifteen of Van Hollen’s Democratic colleagues, including six who sit on the Judiciary Committee, wrote to him at the end of March—even before some of the blockbuster stories about Thomas broke—asking him to withhold $10 million of the court’s funding unless it adopted an ethics code.
The demand is not an unusual one. Federal courts have ruled that “it is completely appropriate and proper for the legislative branch to use the power of the purse to influence the other branches in doing what they ought to be doing.” It happens all the time with the executive branch, and the co-equal judicial branch isn’t an exception.
That’s one avenue Senate Democrats can use for exposing the problem at the court—the problem Roberts refuses to acknowledge—but it’s not the only path. Sen. Ron Wyden, who chairs the Finance Committee, opened another. He asked Thomas’ patron, Harlan Crow, for a detailed accounting of all the gifts, travel, and real estate deals he’s provided Thomas.
Wyden’s committee oversees the Internal Revenue Service, and that’s the implicit threat behind his request: The court might not require that Thomas disclose all these gifts, but the tax code “provides no such exceptions for transfers of a gratuitous or personal nature.” Congress can get those tax records to find out if Crow is following tax law. While Wyden didn’t explicitly make that threat or open an official investigation, he has the power to do it.
The slim majority Democrats have in the Senate—even slimmer without Feinstein’s vote—makes it harder for them to act. But every time they threaten to use their power, it puts Republicans on the defensive.
It’s a good tactic, and it’s working. Here’s Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn’s admission that there’s a problem with the lavish gifts Thomas accepted:
“Well, that’s why I say that I think the Court would do well to consider this experience in coming up with perhaps some additional reforms, but this is not something, an appropriate role for Congress.”
It’s weak, but it’s movement. He’s no longer denying that the court has a problem. That’s why Democrats have to keep up the drumbeat.
Dimitri of WarTranslated has been doing the essential work of translating hours of Russian and Ukrainian video and audio during the invasion of Ukraine. He joins Markos and Kerry from London to talk about how he began this work by sifting through various sources. He is one of the only people translating information for English-speaking audiences. Dimitri’s followed the war since the beginning and has watched the evolution of the language and dispatches as the war has progressed.
