Democrats continue to show that they have different standards for the conduct of conservative versus liberal Supreme Court Justices. Senate Democrats are demanding that Justice Alito recuse himself from certain future cases because he has spoken out against the dangerous Supreme Court "ethics" legislation currently making its way through the Senate. However, it is apparently acceptable for liberal Justice Elena Kagan to essentially speak in support of the same bill. National Review reported:
Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats sent a letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday demanding that he force Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from any future cases involving efforts to regulate the high Court, citing Alito’s public defense of the Court’s independence from Congressional oversight as disqualifying. Shortly after the letter was sent, Justice Elena Kagan publicly weighed in on the debate in the other direction, defending the right of Congress to check the Supreme Court. . .
“It just can’t be that the court is the only institution that somehow is not subject to checks and balances from anybody else. We’re not imperial,” Kagan told the conference in remarks first reported by Politico. “Can Congress do various things to regulate the Supreme Court? I think the answer is: yes.”
“Of course, Congress can regulate various aspects of what the Supreme Court does,” she added. “Congress funds the Supreme Court. Congress historically has made changes to the court’s structure and composition. Congress has made changes to the court’s appellate jurisdiction.”
Of course, Democrats have allies in the media that reinforce this double standard for liberal versus conservative Justices. For instance, The Washington Post has published an opinion piece titled, "Justice Kagan’s comments on Supreme Court ethics are welcome." In contrast, Politico said Justice Alito's comments "sounded unqualified" without offering any serious critiques of Justice Kagan's remarks.
In a July article for The Federalist, Mark Paoletta catalogued the long history Democrats have of looking the other way when a liberal Justice engages in behavior they would otherwise consider to be "unethical":
[I]t’s worth reviewing the Democrats’ reactions to Democrat-appointed justices’ conduct to show why Democrats don’t care about ethics and are using made-up “ethics” smears to undermine the court because the left doesn’t like the court’s popular recent rulings, like affirmative action, the protection of a Christian website designer’s First Amendment speech rights, and the striking down of President Biden’s wildly unconstitutional student loan forgiveness giveaway. Recall that ProPublica, the left-wing outfit funded by left-wing billionaires, did not start looking into the court’s “ethics” until after the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. . .
Democrats are hypocrites who don’t care about ethics on the Supreme Court and are using these bogus smears to undermine the court’s legitimacy because they don’t like its rulings.
Republicans must continue to fight back against the dishonest smears the radical Left is launching against conservative Supreme Court Justices.