In a Wall Street Journal interview, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito made a startling assertion of constitutional power: “No provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period.” Alito was responding to legislation the Senate Judiciary Committee recently approved, a bill requiring the court adopt a code of ethics since the justices refuse to do it voluntarily. Democrats, along with constitutional scholars and lawyers, have been quick to set the record straight.
“It is just wrong on the facts to say that Congress doesn’t have anything to do with the rules guiding the Supreme Court,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said on CNN’s State of the Union. “In fact, from the very beginning, Congress has set those rules,” he added. “No Congressional authority over the Supreme Court—is among the most audacious, absurd, and arrogant of recent Alito misstatements,” tweeted Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Judiciary Committee member. “His head-smacking claim is stunning in saying the Court is answerable to no one.”
