Public faith in our core institutions matters – at least some think so. We’ve heard ad nauseam about the dangers of questioning election integrity since 2020. However, the Democrat Party is silent regarding the importance of sustaining faith in the Supreme Court. Worse than silent, because Democrat politicians themselves are the source of the attacks. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court announced the creation of an ethics code that all Justices have agreed to adhere to. Despite this, many Democrats like Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin don't think that's enough to fulfill their demands for unworkable "ethics" standards.

One example of these unworkable standards is Durbin's October demand for the recusal of Justices Thomas and Alito in two upcoming Supreme Court cases.

I’ve called for Justice Thomas’s recusal in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.
I’ve called for Justice Alito’s recusal in Moore v. U.S.

We need rules of the road for recusals. We need a Supreme Court code of conduct.

— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) October 27, 2023

These calls represent the continued harassment Democrat Senators give to Supreme Court Justices who won’t make rulings in their favor. This harassment is the “price” Senator Schumer promised the Justices would pay.

Few people in America doubt why Democrats ramped up their attacks against the Court over the last year. The Democrat Party is angry that the Court overturned Roe v. Wade. To be sure, there are other areas where enforcing constitutional limits on the government could foil the Democrat’s illegal agendas, but handing abortion policy to voters was an unforgivable sin. The strategy is clear: if they can’t pack the Court, they have to undermine it.

The October demand by Senator Durbin is another thinly veiled attempt to intimidate a Justice into changing his rulings through public pressure. It becomes clear that his recusal request isn’t about ethics reform when you consider what Senator Durbin is asking for. Senator Durbin insists Justice Alito needs to recuse himself from a case in which he was interviewed by one of the lawyers. Justices interact with a large number of people in the public sphere. Having interviewed with someone can’t be the standard that requires a Justice's recusal. An actual conflict of interest needs to exist.

In a response to Senator Durbin, Justice Alito reiterated recusal standards for the Court:

“. . . we regularly receive briefs filed by or on behalf of Members of Congress who have either supported or opposed our confirmations, or who have made either favorable or unfavorable comments about us or our work. We participate in cases in which one or more of the attorneys is a former law clerk, a former colleague, or an individual with whom we have long been acquainted. If we recused in such cases, we would regularly have less than a full bench, and the Court’s work would be substantially disrupted and distorted. In all the instances mentioned above, we are required to put favorable or unfavorable comments and any personal connections with an attorney out of our minds and judge the cases based solely on the law and the facts. And that is what we do. For these reasons, there is no sound reason for my recusal in this case, and in accordance with the duty to sit, I decline to recuse.”

🚨Justice Alito just publicly rejected Senator Durbin’s absurd demand that he recuse in the upcoming Moore v. United States tax case.

This is part of the new playbook for Democrats:

Try to pack the Court by subtracting justices in key cases through bogus recusal demands. pic.twitter.com/3oh1yOfeTb

— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) September 8, 2023

(These standards have largely stayed the same since the Court released its ethics code.)

Senators like Dick Durbin know full well that Democrat-appointed Justices operate by the same recusal rules. They also know the Justices have no legitimate conflicts of interest in either of these cases. None of that matters if your goal is to discredit the institution.

Join RNLA this Friday at 2:00 p.m. ET for a webinar explaining the Supreme Court ethics code and what it means for the Left's war on conservative Justices. Register here!

Join RNLA this Friday at 2 p.m. ET for a webinar: What the New SCOTUS Ethics Code Means for Left's War on Conservative Justices.

Register here! ⬇️ https://t.co/U3Dh4rM5th

— RNLA ⚖️ (@TheRepLawyer) November 14, 2023