Lind­sey Gra­ham shoots down Supreme Court ethics rules from Sen­ate Democ­rats

An attempt by Sen­ate Democ­rats on Wednes­day to impose new ethics rules on the Supreme Court was blocked by Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham (R‑SC).
Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee Chair­man Dick Durbin (D‑IL) sought a unan­i­mous con­sent request to pass leg­is­la­tion cham­pi­oned by him and Sen. Shel­don White­house (D‑RI) to imple­ment a code of con­duct for the high court.
It also includes mech­a­nisms to inves­ti­gate alleged vio­la­tions, require pub­lic dis­clo­sures of gifts and oth­er poten­tial con­flicts of inter­est, and force jus­tices to explain recusals pub­licly.
“The ethics cri­sis at the Supreme Court, the high­est court in the land, is unac­cept­able,” Durbin, the sec­ond-rank­ing Sen­ate Demo­c­rat as major­i­ty whip, said. “It is unsus­tain­able and unwor­thy of the high­est court in the land.”
The effort came after years of lav­ish gifts, many of which were ini­tial­ly undis­closed, from par­ty activists, donors, and oth­ers to con­ser­v­a­tive and lib­er­al jus­tices that raised ques­tions about impar­tial­i­ty. More recent­ly, there have been rev­e­la­tions about con­ser­v­a­tive jus­tices or their fam­i­ly …