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US Senate Democrats pursue Supreme Court ethics legislation
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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So, I guess my question is, will this have any teeth? Suppose Clarence just says "fuck it" and fails to recuse himself when he should? What then? Does this law permit for real consequences, or is it just going to be an extra stern finger wagging?
That's the best question. Clarence Thomas shouldn't have been able to openly flaunt his corruption for decades, but he has. Is this just going to be more firm hand-wringing by the Dems with no enforcement mechanism whatsoever? At that point, it would be better to just recognize the court as illegitimate in the public eye as opposed to giving the false sense that it is in anyway ethical.
It doesn't necessarily need to have teeth since the court has no enforcement mechanism when declaring something unconstitutional. Instead of putting teeth into the law itself, one could argue that if justices were found to be "unethical" it reduces the likelihood that that judges decision is unbiased and opens the door to govt just ignorimg the cases in which an unethical judge tips the scale on which side makes up the majority of the court....
Still doubt any of that happens though because Dems are the govt now
The Dems are unlikely to straight up just ignore SCOTUS rulings. With all that's happened in the last 6 years, I believe the Republicans absolutely would ignore a SCOTUS ruling, and they would be FAR more likely to just ignore SCOTUS altogether if the Dems ignored the SCOTUS student loan forgiveness ruling.
What is more likely, would be the Dems/Biden reduce payments to some minimal amount like $1/mo and place all student loans at a negative interest rate, since the powers to set payment amounts and interest rates were confirmed by the SCOTUS ruling.
The end result would be something like 'If you've paid the principal balance, you're done. If your loans have lasted 10+ years, you're done. If you cannot afford to pay, pay us the $1/mo and eventually your balance will get to $0 because it has been set to a negative interest rate, so you're done.'
This strategy is a long term play by the Dems, because the public will be made extremely aware that the next Republican president or Republican majority Congress will force them to pay those loans, with interest. The voters will know instantly they shouldn't vote Red. Even if they were raised Republican, if you knew voting Red would mean you owe the government $10,000 as soon as that person takes office, you're unlikely to vote Red. That would be a grand slam Dark Brandon move.