Whitehouse floats congressional intervention for SCOTUS fact-finding adventurism

Benjamin S. Weiss

www.courthousenews.com

Originally posted 21 Feb 24

One of the Senate’s most prominent Supreme Court critics on Wednesday floated the idea that Congress could step in to block the high court from what he characterized as efforts to manipulate facts in cases that benefit Republican special interests.

Under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court has had a “near-uniform pattern of handing down rulings benefitting identifiable Republican donor interests” on a smattering of issues including reproductive rights, immigration and health care, wrote Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in an article published in the Ohio State Law Journal.

The Roberts court has presided over more than 80 5-4 rulings on issues advancing GOP policy priorities with few exceptions, he said, contending that the high court’s current conservative supermajority has pursued “results-oriented jurisprudence” for Republican political operatives.

A pattern of “extra-record fact finding” has contributed to these decisions, Whitehouse said — arguing that justices have repeatedly and improperly undertaken efforts to manipulate the facts of cases in which a lower court, or Congress, has already established a factual record.

Such malfeasance means taking the Supreme Court’s decisions on faith “is no longer automatically justified,” he said. “Too many decisions are delivered goods, not judicial work.”

The info is here.

Here is a summary:

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse suggests potential congressional intervention to address concerns about the Supreme Court's increasing reliance on "extra-record fact-finding" in recent rulings. He argues that this practice, where justices seemingly manipulate or ignore established facts, undermines the Court's credibility.

Whitehouse argues that a pattern of disregard for congressional findings and longstanding appellate court norms is evident in several recent Supreme Court decisions. He believes this approach benefits certain special interests and erodes trust in the Court's impartiality.

The article highlights the need for a potential response from Congress to curb this perceived judicial overreach by the Supreme Court.

Nurses Continue to Rate Highest in Honesty, Ethics

RJ Reinhart
news.gallup.com
Originally posted 6 Jan 20

For the 18th year in a row, Americans rate the honesty and ethics of nurses highest among a list of professions that Gallup asks U.S. adults to assess annually. Currently, 85% of Americans say nurses' honesty and ethical standards are "very high" or "high," essentially unchanged from the 84% who said the same in 2018. Alternatively, Americans hold car salespeople in the lowest esteem, with 9% saying individuals in this field have high levels of ethics and honesty, similar to the 8% who said the same in 2018.

Nurses are consistently rated higher in honesty and ethics than all other professions that Gallup asks about, by a wide margin. Medical professions in general rate highly in Americans' assessments of honesty and ethics, with at least six in 10 U.S. adults saying medical doctors, pharmacists and dentists have high levels of these virtues. The only nonmedical profession that Americans now hold in a similar level of esteem is engineers, with 66% saying individuals in this field have high levels of honesty and ethics.

Americans' high regard for healthcare professionals contrasts sharply with their assessments of stockbrokers, advertising professionals, insurance salespeople, senators, members of Congress and car salespeople -- all of which garner less than 20% of U.S. adults saying they have high levels of honesty and ethics.

The public's low levels of belief in the honesty and ethical standards of senators and members of Congress may be a contributing factor in poor job approval ratings for the legislature. No more than 30% of Americans have approved of Congress in the past 10 years.

The info is here.

Rep. Matt Gaetz to be investigated by House Ethics for tweet apparently threatening Cohen

Emily Kopp
www.rollcall.com
Originally published June 28, 2019


Rep. Matt Gaetz faces an inquiry by the House Ethics Committee for a tweet that appeared to threaten President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen with blackmail.

The House Ethics Committee announced Friday it would establish an investigative subcommittee to review whether the Florida Republican, a staunch ally of the president, sought to intimidate Cohen before he testified before the House Oversight and Reform panel. The Ethics Committee had sought an interview with Gaetz, but he declined, triggering the investigation.

“If members of Congress want to spend their time psychoanalyzing my tweets, it’s certainly their prerogative,” Gaetz said in an emailed statement. “I won’t be joining them in the endeavor.”

Maryland Democrat Anthony G. Brown will serve as the chairman of the investigative subcommittee, while Mississippi RepublicanMichael Guest will be the ranking member. The panel will have the power to issue subpoenas in its pursuit of information, documents and interviews.

The info is here.