Ds: "Will you please come to a hearing that is structured to make you look bad?"
Person: lol, no
Ds: "oh well, worth a try, guess we're all out of ideas"
The subpoena should say “you will be speaking tomorrow at 9:00 am. It will be televised on Cspan. It will continue day to day until completed. It will be under oath. If you are ten seconds late there will be federal marshals and handcuffs to get you in your seat.”
"The committee is legislating on whether the supreme court ethics code is enforceable, whether it should be formalized into law, and how it or a contempt interacts with the good behavior clause, or should factor into senate rules about the relevant standard when cited against judges for impeachment"
"we will consider implementing a law which automatically expands the court when existing members are found to engage in treason, to protect against corrupt votes in favor of insurrectionists by balancing them out"
Are idiots like Durbin the least bit responsive to outreach from non-constituents? I know the general answer is "no" but it seems like people in various degrees of leadership should be.
They don’t have the votes to force the issue. It is up to the electorate to provide them the people on Congress to take action.
Sad, and angering and also true.
but pwn don’t you know that any sort of accountability to another branch actually infringes on separation of powers???
(I wish I could be certain that I’m just making this up and it wasn’t something someone has actually said before)
Of course, but you run it as a ratchet, and it goes like this:
A: Please come talk about this
B: No
A: Here's a subpoena
B: for separation of powers reasons, no
A: The committee is now legislating on Supreme Court ethics, new subpoena
B: no
A: we are holding you in contempt
B: ok let's litigate it
A: OK, files complaint
B: You're really gonna do this, huh?
A: Yep. If we have to, we'll take this all the way up to the ... OH
B: Yeah.
...
B: We good?
Also, Americans have at best, an average education on gov & civics but a common theme almost everyone knows is that the co-equal branches of government provide checks and balances for each other, so you can paint ignoring a hearing subpoena as a great deviation from norms that most folks understand.
Eventually you get to an executive saying loudly that SCOTUS cannot be above the law. That's part of the ratchet too. It's all pressure and eventually they either capitulate, or as @mtsw.bsky.social says, you start taking away their keys, funding. Every step builds coalitional support to that end.
Durbin should be snarky with the corrupt John Roberts. Ask Roberts what he needs to have a meeting, luxury vacation? luxury RV motorhome? insurrection flags for his homes? Durbin should ask Roberts should he "Appeal to Heaven" for help getting a meeting?
Durbin needed to include lots of cash in his letter to Roberts. Robert's 'Pay to Play' Republican controlled Supreme Court. "...wife of Chief Justice John Roberts, made more than $10 million...matched top lawyers ... some that had cases before the Supreme Court ...", www.forbes.com/sites/nichol...
Yeah, you also write the letters saying openly "this SCOTUS is behaving in a way suggesting that they feel they're above the rules and if they want to dispel that impression, they show up here and explain under oath why they are not."
"If they demonstrate they have no intent to uphold all their obligations under the constitution then we are forced to expand the court to ensure that a majority of the court once again respects the constitution"
I'm not dooming, I'm asking (well, I'm not *just* dooming, I'm *also* asking, but I'm not dismissing "that's not how people are going to see it" a priori)
This conversation is so frustrating.
- dems need to fight
- but they’ll lose in court. Dems need to win elections
- how do you think they win elections?
-……
won't get that far, but it'll create a ton of noise along the way (which is the point). IOW, you're saying: The Senate will not treat grave ethics problems in its parallel branches as just an issue of squeamishness or decorum, but insists they are serious, and must be answered.
Republicans spend a solid 60-70% of their time on dumb fights that they pick to lose, usually in court, so they can rage about it to their followers. That’s practically everything DeSantis does. They get marketing.
