Congressman Johnson Leads House Members Launching Court Reform Now Task Force
With Supreme Court Mired in Ethical Lapses, Right-Wing Activism and All-Time Low Approval Ratings, House Members Create Court Reform Task Force To Restore Balance, Accountability to Court
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Hank Johnson (GA-04), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Subcommittee overseeing our Federal Courts, Senior Judiciary Committee member Congressman Adam Schiff (CA-30), Oversight & Accountability Committee Ranking Member Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08), Judiciary Member Congresswoman Madeleine Dean (PA-04), Freshman Leadership Representative Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (TX-30), along with court reform advocacy groups, announced today the creation of The Court Reform Now Task Force.
Livestream here: https://twitter.com/RepHankJohnson/status/1790819752354660743
Wealthy special interests have corrupted the Republican supermajority on the Supreme Court – making it unethical and unaccountable to the American people. Now those special interests are getting what they paid for: a Supreme Court majority that protects the wealthy and powerful, while taking away rights from everyone else. Task Force members say the nation needs to reform the Supreme Court, so it protects the rights of all Americans by reducing the influence of wealthy, special interests.
The task force will be utilized as a platform to increase awareness and elevate debate around key pieces of court reform legislation to fix and rebalance the court – The Judiciary Act to expand the Supreme Court, Supreme Court Ethics, Transparency & Recusal Act (SCERT) to require a binding code of ethics and transparency measures for justices, and the TERM Act setting term limits for justices.
“I formed this Task Force because we are at a crisis point for the Supreme Court,” said Congressman Johnson. “The nation’s highest court refuses to bind itself to an enforceable code of conduct after decades of ethical misconduct by certain justices who consistently rule in favor of the big-money special interests that put them on the bench. Even more disturbing is the Court’s disruption of the system of checks and balances by usurping both Legislative and Executive authority with activist decisions that disregard established precedent to achieve political results that threaten freedom and democracy as we know it. The result has been a severe loss of public trust and confidence in the Court as the guardian of the rule of law. To restore public trust and confidence, Congress must pass reforms that add seats to the Supreme Court, require term limits for justices, and which require the Court to impose upon itself a binding and enforceable code of conduct. The task force will be a platform to raise awareness, educate members and staff, and stimulate debate around the need to reform the Supreme Court, so we can restore judicial independence, meaningful checks and balances and protection of the rights of all Americans.”
“The American people have lost faith in this Supreme Court because of the corrupting influence of undisclosed gifts and favors from billionaires and special interests,” said Rep. Schiff. “Our Court Reform Now Task Force will push forward much needed changes that ensure the Court is accountable, fair, transparent, and works to protect the rights of all Americans, not just special interests and wealthy donors.”
“We now have the best Supreme Court money can buy, which is to say an awful Supreme Court. But the American people deserve the best Supreme Court money can’t buy,” said Rep. Raskin. “Right-wing dark money networks have remade the federal judiciary and brought the Supreme Court to the point of ethical collapse and institutional disgrace. The Court Reform Now Task Force aims to restore the long-lost integrity of—and corresponding public confidence in—the Supreme Court by highlighting ethical violations and abuses of power and offering practical solutions. I'm grateful to my colleagues Representatives Johnson, Crockett, Dean and Schiff for partnering with me in this important initiative.”
“An ethical, impartial Judiciary is crucial to safeguarding our democracy and protecting the rights of the American people,” Rep. Dean said. “I'm grateful to Congressman Johnson for his leadership and initiative and look forward to serving with him and our fellow co-chairs on the Court Reform Now Taskforce, working to get crucial pieces of legislation like the Judiciary Act, SCERT Act, and Term Act over the finish line.”
“Over the past two decades, polls have shown a significant plunge in public trust for the Supreme Court after overturning decades of legal precedents in exchange for far-right wish-lists. The court’s claims of impartiality have been decimated by certain justices of the Court who espouse extremist political positions and have been revealed to have withheld significant financial ties to Republican megadonors. It begs the question: as the highest court of the land, who does the Supreme Court answer to?” said Rep. Crockett. “We are establishing the Court Reform Task Force to answer that question with resounding clarity: the Supreme Court answers to the law, the Constitution, and the American people.”
WHAT THE GROUPS ARE SAYING
“The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court is unaccountable, unethical, and unchecked in their attacks on our fundamental freedoms, and we are grateful to the members of this Task Force who are working to change that,” said Sean Eldridge, President of Stand Up America. “As a coequal branch of government, our representatives in Congress have not only the right to serve as a check on the Supreme Court, but a duty. We urge every member who cares about protecting our democracy and our fundamental freedoms to join these leaders in supporting legislation to enact term limits, expand the court, and pass a binding code of ethics.”
“Every major evolution of our nation’s judicial ethics framework has been born out of high-profile controversies involving judges and justices,” said Adam Smith, Vice President for Democracy Initiatives at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Today, we find ourselves once again at such an inflection point. CREW applauds Congressman Johnson for leading this task force and his unwavering commitment to restoring the public's faith in the Supreme Court and ensuring the justices are held to the highest ethical standards.”
“When the Supreme Court ended Roe v. Wade nearly two years ago, it opened the door to the cruel and dangerous abortion bans that are harming real people nationwide,” said Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju. “Our fundamental rights shouldn’t be up to the whims of extremist justices. We need court reform to restore the legitimacy of our federal judiciary and address the crises we face. We’re grateful to Rep. Johnson and our champions in Congress who are fighting to make that a reality through this task force.”
“Our environmental laws need judges who will enforce them, but the Supreme Court’s extreme MAGA supermajority has repeatedly shown that it will twist the law to limit climate action, roll back protections for clean water and air, gut voting rights, and open the floodgates to Big Polluter money in politics. LCV stands with Representatives Hank Johnson, Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, Madeleine Dean, Jasmine Crockett, and all the members of the Court Reform Now Task Force as they fight to expand and rebalance the Supreme Court, require a binding code of ethics, and advance other reforms to ensure the nation’s highest court serves the people, not Big Polluters,” said Doug Lindner, Senior Director of Judiciary & Democracy at the League of Conservation Voters.
“The federal judiciary is in desperate need of reform, and we thank Reps. Johnson, Schiff, Raskin, Dean, and Crockett for lifting up Congress's ability to act,” said Demand Justice Managing Director Maggie Jo Buchanan. “Our courts have actively worked to dismantle the rights of everyday Americans, all while holding themselves above the law. Americans agree --over 70 percent of Independents, Republicans, and Democrats believe that the judiciary has too much power. Legislation that places checks on extremist judges abusing our courts are commonsense reforms for anyone who wants a fair and just judiciary.”
“While the House may not be involved in judicial nominations, it still has a vital role to play in regulating this unhinged Supreme Court,” said Rakim H.D. Brooks, President of Alliance for Justice. “We applaud these new efforts to raise awareness and propose robust court reform solutions. Congress must be uncompromising in its effort to hold this Court accountable using every tool available.”
We are grateful for the leadership of Representatives Johnson, Raskin, Dean, Crockett and Schiff in holding our out-of-control Supreme Court accountable by establishing the Court Reform Now Task Force,” said Meagan Hatcher-Mays, Senior Advisor at Court Accountability. “This new task force is a critical step toward confronting the far-right scheme that has captured our courts and dragged our constitutional rights back to the 18th century in service to MAGA funders and their allies. At a time when a new Supreme Court scandal drops seemingly every week, this task force makes clear that a strong coalition of House members won’t stop fighting to rein in the MAGA justices’ grotesque and un-American abuses of power.”
“We’ve seen more than enough evidence that these justices are corrupt. It’s time to take concrete steps towards holding them accountable and taking back this broken court,” said Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president of Take Back the Court Action Fund. “With a new round of potentially disastrous Supreme Court decisions fast approaching, the Court Reform Now Task Force couldn’t come at a more important time. Thanks to champions like Representatives Johnson, Crockett, Dean, Raskin, and Schiff, urgent reforms like Supreme Court expansion and an ethics code won’t just be great ideas that hang around in congressional limbo — they can get real legs to move forward.”
“The Court Reform Now Task Force will not only clean up the Supreme Court but will keep any justices—present and future—from ever putting their own bottom lines above the people,” said Tiffany Muller, President of End Citizens United // Let America Vote Action Fund. “The Supreme Court should be a gold standard for ethics—not the corrupt mess it currently is. We know this task force, and the co-chairs, are up to the challenge of rooting out the corruption within the court.”
“The courts should work to further justice and rights for all, not undermine them,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. “We are so grateful to Reps. Johnson, Crockett, Dean, Schiff, and Raskin for their leadership in creating this Task Force to advocate for a court that is worthy of our nation’s trust and confidence and for their continued recognition that the courts are central to democracy and that they are a frontline in the battle for democracy. While a constellation of highly-coordinated, well-funded extremists seek to undermine this vision of the courts by manipulating our court system as they peddle misguided legal theories and work to roll back the civil and human rights of people and try to hamstring the ability of our government to serve all people, this Task Force will play an important role in shining a light on the harms of extreme tactics and the imperative that they be addressed."
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