#shorts Senator Kennedy said, “And later the next day, our colleague had a chance to fix his remarks on the Senate floor. Here’s what he said, quote, ‘there would be political consequences for President Trump and Senate Republicans if the Supreme Court with newly confirmed justices stripped away a woman’s right to choose.’ What bigger tell do you want? … This is what some of my colleagues said in their brief, quote, ‘the Supreme Court is not well, and the people know it. Perhaps the court can heal itself before the public demands it be restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics … ‘ That’s what this case is all about, this bill is all about, and I get it, you disagree with opinions of the United States Supreme Court.
On 7/20/2023, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted, 11-10 along party lines, to approve Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-R.I.) bill that would overhaul ethics and transparency requirements for the Supreme Court, a move Republicans regard as an erosion of separation of powers and an attack on the conservative court. Whitehouse, one of Congress’ leading critics of the court, said Congress must act because the justices have failed to implement any meaningful reforms on their own. “You don’t have to be Oliver Wendell Scalia to figure out that this legislation is meant to be a court-killing machine,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said. “This thing’s dead as fried chicken on the Senate floor and it’s dead as fried chicken in the House.”
Republicans said the entire Democratic effort was an act of retaliation aimed at the high court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority and its decisions last year. Republicans repeatedly referenced Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s impassioned statement on the steps of the Supreme Court in March 2020 warning Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh that they “have released the whirlwind.” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, explained the danger that the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act of 2023 poses to the U.S. Supreme Court and the constitutionally-mandated balance of powers.
other clips of this published longer video is here: https://youtu.be/ipAG4grA7hE
Kennedy: Dems’ amicus brief, you disagree with opinions of SCOTUS