Democracy Demands a Fair and Ethical Court

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman today welcomed former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards to a press conference in Trenton to highlight the consequential, rightwing rulings coming from the Supreme Court.

With legal experts and issue advocates in tow, Rep. Watson Coleman also urged reform of America’s jarringly swampy 9-member Supreme Court.

Today’s presser is latest stop in a nationwide ‘Just Majority’ bus tour whose slogan is “Democracy Demands A Fair And Ethical Court.”

The campaign is a coalition of reproductive rights, gun violence prevention, civil rights, and judicial reform groups calling for ethics reforms and Supreme Court expansion.

Recent news about Justice Neil Gorsuch lucrative (and dodgy) real estate deals followed shocking revelations about Justice Clarence Thomas’ lavish lifestyle bankrolled by an eccentric rightwing billionaire with business before the Hight Court.

“For decades, conservative politicians and their powerful donors have worked to undermine democracy and used the Supreme Court to do it,” Watson Coleman told InsiderNJ. “Seemingly every month or so a new scandal emerges, from Justice Thomas’s gifts, to the sale of property by Justice Gorsuch to lawyers with cases before the court, to Chief Justice Roberts refusing to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Ms. Watson Coleman’s remarks followed yesterday’s revelation that Chief Justice John Roberts’ wife received $10m in recruiting fees from law firms with business before the Supreme Court.

Swampy, ain’t it?

“The result has been a cratering of American’s faith in the Court,” Ms. Watson Coleman added. “There are many reforms we can explore: a code of ethics, term limits or cycling of judges to the lower courts, but only expansion would immediately restore balance to a court controlled by an unaccountable, unethical majority that has put their personal political bias above the law.”

Cecile Richards, who ran Planned Parenthood of America from 2006-2018, echoed Congresswoman Watson Coleman’s sentiments.

“I’m excited to be here in Trenton to talk about the need to reform our Supreme Court,” Ms. Richards told InsiderNJ. “We need ethic reform where the Supreme Court is held to the same standards as any elected official would be. Personally, I believe we need term limits. It is incredible that the Court that j just took away rights from all people in this county to make their own  decisions about pregnancy could be sitting there for decades more. This urgent and this is a crisis in America.”

Ms. Watson Coleman and Ms. Richards were be joined by Caroline Fredrickson, a former member of the Biden Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States who cited “ethics reform” of the Supreme Court as a top priority.

Jay Lassiter is an award-winning writer and podcaster based in Cherry Hill, NJ.

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