WASHINGTON (CN) — As he urged his Republican colleagues to commit to certifying the results of November’s presidential election, a senior House Democrat said Monday that he was also concerned about how the Supreme Court would handle the contest if it came before the bench.
“I’m really fearful — I think many Americans are fearful — of what the court might do if the 2024 election ends up in front of the court,” said New York Representative Joe Morelle, ranking member of the House Committee on Administration.
Morelle spoke at a webinar held by liberal advocacy group Courage for America, during which he called on House Republicans to commit to certifying the results of November’s election, slamming some colleagues who refused to certify President Joe Biden’s victory in the last election on Jan. 6, 2021, following the Capitol riot.
The New York Democrat also said Supreme Court ethics reform was another necessary piece to ensuring the democratic process works as intended in 2024.
“I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but there are a number of things we’re going to have to do to restore the confidence of the American people in the Supreme Court,” Morelle told Courthouse News.
He pointed to President Biden’s call last month for a constitutional amendment that would nullify the high court’s July decision to give former President Donald Trump — and future presidents — limited legal immunity for their core powers of office and other “official actions.”
It was “one of the worst decisions they’ve made,” Morelle said, “although they’ve made a slew of them, honestly.”
Last month, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer unveiled a bill that would paper over that ruling and slap limits on the Supreme Court’s ability to litigate challenges to the new statute. The top Senate Democrat told Courthouse News during an Aug. 1 news conference that he and his colleagues were still strategizing on how to bring the measure up for a vote.
Morelle on Monday also threw his support behind Biden’s call for term limits on the high court. The president has proposed an 18-year cap for justices, a system under which every president would have the opportunity to appoint two new jurists to the bench during their own term.
“I think all of those things should be on the table,” he said.
Georgia Representative Hank Johnson, one of the House’s leading voices for Supreme Court reform and head of the chamber’s Court Reform Now task force, has sponsored a bill that would implement term limits for the justices that the Biden administration has now backed.
Legislation rolling back presidential immunity and doing away with the Supreme Court’s lifetime appointments aren’t the only ways in which Democrats are working to place checks on the justices, some of whom lawmakers have accused of too-cozy relationships with conservative legal activists and donors.
Senate Democrats are planning a way to revive the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act penned by Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. The bill, which Republicans blocked on unanimous consent earlier this year, would among other things force the court to adopt an enforceable code of ethical standards — something lawmakers and legal experts say the bench is sorely lacking.
Whitehouse’s measure would also hike transparency for when and how justices must recuse themselves from cases in which they have a conflict of interest and establish a review board for adjudicating ethics complaints against the Supreme Court.
Republicans, however, have signaled that any effort to reform the high court is a nonstarter in their caucus.
Some GOP lawmakers have argued that the legislative push is little more than sour grapes from Democrats upset about the court’s conservative majority. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said any court reform bill would be “dead on arrival” in the upper chamber. House Speaker Mike Johnson has expressed a similar sentiment.
Morelle, joined by a pair of U.S. Capitol Police officers who defended members of Congress during the Capitol riot, sounded the alarm Monday about what he said was a renewed effort by some Republicans to obfuscate about the forthcoming presidential election.
“They’re sowing seeds of doubt in the legitimacy of the 2024 election even before a single ballot has been cast,” he said, accusing Republicans of lying about issues such as noncitizen voting, adding that they were fomenting political violence with their rhetoric.
The New York lawmaker said he would call out Republican colleagues for this behavior and urged them to commit to certifying the results of November’s election no matter the result.
“I’m going to continue to remind my colleagues of the importance to perform official civic duty,” Morelle said, “to uphold the sanctity of free and fair elections, to uphold the rule of law and the long traditions of this democracy.”
When Congress met Jan. 6, 2021, to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, around 147 congressional Republicans voted to object to vote counts in Arizona and Pennsylvania. GOP lawmakers also raised objections to election results in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, but none of these complaints saw a vote during the joint session of Congress.
Certification of the 2020 election was delayed after rioters breached the Capitol building in an attempt to stop the process, forcing lawmakers to evacuate the building. Five people died in the attack and more than 170 people were injured.
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