As we reported Saturday, March 7, the failure and unwillingness of institutions—churches, schools, corporations, professional societies, et al.—to maintain standards of professional conduct, and to police and disciplined their own, is a big reason institutions increasingly have lost the public’s trust and confidence, and, with that, their ability to mold the American character and shape the nation’s destiny.
Yuval Levin makes this point brilliantly in a new and important book: A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream.
The Congress of the United States, unfortunately, is not immune from this problem. Witness the fact that Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has threatened two Supreme Court justices.
For this reason, we have called upon the Senate to censure Schumer. This would be the right thing to do; and it would help to restore public trust and confidence in Congress as an institution.
Schumer’s apologists, however, say that censure is unnecessary because Schumer has apologized. In truth, though, the senator has issued a sham non-apology in which he doesn’t really own up to his condemnable offense; and this makes censure all the more imperative. Consider:
Abortion. First, after Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) rebuked Schumer, Schumer began his “apology” by castigating McConnell for a “glaring omission.” McConnell’s offense? He failed to mention that Schumer’s threats were issued within the context of a political rally motivated by an abortion rights case now pending before the Supreme Court.
But this is utterly irrelevant. Threats against Supreme Court justices do not become more legitimate or acceptable if they involve certain types of favored cases. Threats against Supreme Court justices are always and everywhere wrong. So-called context here is a diversion that Schumer is using to try and evade responsibility for his obviously egregious misconduct.
Louisiana Law. Second, Schumer falsely suggests that Court is on the verge of outlawing a so-called woman’s right to choose an abortion; and that this is accounts for his “anger” and “passion.” But this is hyperbolic nonsense.
In truth, what is at issue before the Court now is not the underlying right to abortion; but rather, whether doctors who perform abortions should be required to have hospital admitting privileges.
The state of Louisiana passed a law making this a requirement for doctors who perform abortion. The Court must decide whether this is an “undue burden” on the right to terminate a pregnancy. But even if the court found that the Louisiana law is Constitutional, abortion will remain a Constitutional right.
And what if the Court found that abortion is no longer a Constitutional right. Does that mean abortion will be ipso facto outlawed? No, as Sen. Schumer well knows.
Instead, it means that abortion policy will be decided by Congress, if it so chooses, and/or (more likely) the 50 state legislatures. Some states, such as California and New York will allow abortion at virtually any stage of a pregnancy, while other states, such as Louisiana and Alabama, will have more restrictive laws governing abortion.
In any case, the policy implications of the Court’s jurisprudence are again, utterly irrelevant. Threatening Supreme Court justices is plainly, simply, and obviously wrong. There are no exceptions to this rule because a senator feels strongly or passionately about a particular case or issue pending before the the Court.
Schumer’s huffing and puffing about abortion is a political diversion designed to try and legitimize his threats and thereby enable him to evade responsibility for his wrongdoing.
Political Diversion. Third, Schumer claimed that he wasn’t threatening violence, but instead was warning of the “political consequences” that would result were the Court to undermine abortion rights. Anyone suggesting otherwise is guilty of “a gross distortion,” he asserts. But as George Conway III observes in the Washington Post, “Schumer’s words
were unmistakably intimidating: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch.” “I want to tell you, Kavanaugh.” “You will pay the price.” “You won’t know what hit you if …” The emphasis is mine, but the meaning is clear: If you don’t do as we say, something bad will happen to you.
Those were threats, pure and simple. Although Schumer’s office was right that Schumer also spoke of a political backlash at the ballot box, that hardly leavens the threatening words Schumer directed toward Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh.
They have life tenure. Just as the Constitution’s drafters intended, elections can’t punish them. So what “price” would they “pay”? What exactly will “hit” them?
Moreover, while Schumer may have meant only that the Justices will suffer “political consequences,” some of his more deranged supporters may legitimately think otherwise, given the inherently threatening nature of his rhetoric.
Again, it was only three years ago that a Bernie Sanders supporter with a manifest hatred for Republicans nearly gunned down the entire House Republican leadership and some two dozen GOP congressmen. Schumer needs to be mindful of the effects his rhetoric might have on the lunatic left.
Chief Justice Roberts. Fourth, after the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, rightly rebuked Schumer for his threats, Schumer’s spokesman attacked Roberts for “remaining silent when President Trump attacked Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg.”
But even if Roberts had done what Schumer’s spokesman said he did—give Trump a pass—two wrongs don’t make a right.
As it turns out, though, Trump never threatened Justices Sotomayor or Ginsburg. Instead, Trump recently said that these two justices should recuse themselves in all “Trump matters” because of their alleged bias against him.
Trump’s remarks may have been, as Conway argues “dumb, baseless, and contemptuous of the rule of law; but they weren’t threatening.”
Indeed, since Trump could theoretically make a motion to recuse, and thus present the issue to the individual justices, it would have been inappropriate for Roberts to respond. And given how Trump didn’t and won’t back up his words with such a motion, his remarks didn’t deserve a response.
Beyond this, Roberts has spoken out against Trump’s demeaning of the judiciary.
In November 2018, after Trump criticized an “Obama judge” who had ruled against Trump’s administration, Roberts responded that there are no “Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges” but, instead, “an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”
(Trump, of course, immediately hit back.)
But judges, let alone the chief justice, shouldn’t have to verbally spar with politicians. It undermines the judiciary for judges to have to do that, or even to consider whether they have to.
Schumer’s concerted attempt to rationalize his threats and evade responsibility for his misconduct make it all the more imperative that Congress intervene and formally censure him.
Again, this is about institutional honor and integrity, and restoring public trust and confidence in Congress as an institution. The time to act is now.
Feature photo credit: Reuters/Leah Millis via National Review.