The Scheme 19: “Operation Higher Court” and the Supreme Court Ethics Crisis

November 30 | Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Courts Subcommittee, delivered the nineteenth in a series of speeches titled “The Scheme,” exposing the machinations by right-wing donor interests to capture the U.S. Supreme Court and achieve through the Court what they cannot through the elected branches of government.

Whitehouse discussed “Operation Higher Court,” a private campaign by right-wing activists to “embolden the justices” to write “unapologetically conservative opinions.” Whitehouse also called on Congress to pass his Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, a bill to enact stronger recusal standards, require the Supreme Court to adopt a binding code of conduct, and mandate more robust rules governing judges’ duty to disclose gifts and travel paid for by outside parties.