A conservative Supreme Court justice has issued a harsh rebuke against leftist lawmakers in Congress trying to implement an ethics code for the Court.
The behavior of Supreme Court justices has been in the spotlight recently as the left has been trying to take down conservative judges Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas for alleged ethics violations.
Now, liberals in Congress are trying to mandate a SCOTUS ethics code, probably in the hope that one of the conservative justices will be caught violating it and be impeached.
Unfortunately for the left, Alito has just told them that that is just not going to happen.
On Friday, the Wall Street Journal published an interview with Alito in which he said that Congress has absolutely no power whatsoever to regulate the behavior of the Supreme Court.
“I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it,” Alito said. “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”
Later, Alito implied that there were other justices who share his position on the issue. “I don’t know that any of my colleagues have spoken about it publicly, so I don’t think I should say. But I think it is something we have all thought about.”
According to the Washington Post, Michael Mukasey, who served as attorney general under President George W. Bush, agreed with Alito in his assessment of the issue.
“A law compelling the court to adopt such a code, or purporting to impose one legislatively, would violate the principle of separation of powers, and would also be unworkable inasmuch as there is no authority other than the justices themselves to apply such a code,” he said to a Senate committee.
Alito and Mukasey are absolutely right, and what they say is important for a number of reasons.
First of all, the Constitution instituted the separation of powers so that no one branch of government could have too much power. Also, it ensures that no branch of government has power over the other, although there is a system of checks and balances for the branches to keep each other in check.
By implementing an ethics code on the Supreme Court, Congress would thereby assert its authority to meddle in the affairs of the Court, meaning one branch would be interfering with the work of another.
In short, this would violate the principle of the separation of powers instituted by the Constitution.
In addition, it is important to note that the left’s push for a SCOTUS ethics code does not come from a genuine concern about the integrity of the court, but rather from petty partisan politics.
Under President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court became dominated by conservative justices, and that court has delivered a number of conservative rulings that have left leftists enraged.
Their push for an ethics code is really just a witch hunt against two conservative justices who they see as responsible for the decisions that they disagree with.
Hopefully, however, the Constitution will stand in their way and prevent them from doing that.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
