Yeah, there's a one-sided politicization problem on this court.
Democratic lawmakers blast Supreme Court commission for 'both-sidesing' court politicization
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/20/2065287/-Democratic-lawmakers-blast-Supreme-Court-commission-for-both-sidesing-court-politicization
Four congressional Democrats wrote a scathing letter to President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court reform commission this week, calling out the commission’s failure to address or even examine the degree to which dark money groups with well-funded lobbying campaigns have influenced the court, both in terms of the justices appointed and their decisions.
In the letter, Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono, and Georgia Representative Hank Johnson remind the commission that they’ve already called this issue out: “We wrote to you earlier this year to emphasize that the issues your Commission is tasked to consider cannot be addressed without grappling with pressing judicial ethics concerns, including the role of secretive special-interest influence in and around the Court.” The commission released its first discussion drafts last month, showing that it was failing to address some of the Court’s fundamental problems—like the politicization of the court through groups like the Federalist Society—and downplaying others.
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The lawmakers also strike at the core of the commissions’ failings, it’s insistence on “both-sidesing” the politicization of the court. “This view that ‘both sides’ are equally to blame for the politicization of the Court, and the implicit assumption that members of the Court are themselves insulated and apart from this politicization, is an unproven proposition,” they wrote.
“In the face of overwhelming evidence that the Court has been captured by partisan donor interests, it is wrong to perpetuate the fiction that it has not been,” the lawmakers write. “By grounding its draft report foremost in the concern that the public must perceive the Court to be legitimate and independent, the Commission fails to consider the very real and much more dangerous possibility that it might not be.”
The updated draft of the commission, released ahead of a Friday public meeting, shows that the commission is still not dealing with that fundamental challenge of this court. That’s not too surprising—the commission includes a few staunchly anti-abortion lawyers and Federalist Society members.
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