Durbin makes unusual request for chief justice’s testimony over Clarence Thomas ethics concerns
Kaelan Deese David Sivak
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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) invited Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to testify next month before the panel over ethics reform inquiries at the nation’s highest court, marking an unusual request amid disclosure concerns over Justice Clarence Thomas.
Durbin’s invitation comes amid a series of revelations surrounding Thomas going on luxury vacations and making real estate transactions with wealthy GOP donor Harlan Crow. For years, Thomas also did not report his trips with Crow.
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“Your last significant discussion of how Supreme Court Justices address ethical issues was presented in your 2011 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary,” Durbin wrote in a letter to Roberts regarding the invitation.
″These problems were already apparent back in 2011, and the Court’s decade-long failure to address them has contributed to a crisis of public confidence,” the chairman wrote. “The status quo is no longer tenable.”
Durbin added that the “time has come” for an additional public conversation on ways to restore public confidence in the court’s ethical standards. “I invite you to join it, and I look forward to your response,” he wrote.
If Roberts does not voluntarily agree to testify, Congress may have limited options to compel testimony.
Supreme Court justices have testified in the past before congressional appropriations committees regarding the budget for the court, though there isn’t clear precedent for asking a justice to testify on ethical standards on behalf of their colleagues.
“I don’t know if there’s precedent for a sitting chief justice to come testify at a Senate hearing,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told reporters. She noted that it might be more appropriate for the governing body of federal courts or representatives for the Judicial Conference to come testify about ethics.
Sen. John Thune (R-SD) echoed Collins, saying, “I don’t think it’s ever been done before.”
The only justice subpoenaed by Congress was Tom Clark in the 1950s, who refused, and lawmakers declined to pursue the matter further.
Liberal groups such as Common Cause sent a letter last week calling on the House and Senate judiciary committees to invite both Roberts and Thomas to testify.
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The committee should “call Justice Clarence Thomas as a witness in hearings to examine Supreme Court ethics in the wake of the latest scandal to engulf the nation’s highest court,” according to the group.
The Washington Examiner contacted the Supreme Court for a response.