Washington, DC – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) released the following statement today on the decision by the federal courts’ Committee on the Codes of Conduct not to move forward with draft guidance that would bar judges from membership in the Federalist Society and American Constitution Society:
“The Committee bowing to pressure from Mitch McConnell and a horde of Federalist Society members on the bench demonstrates the power of the partisan donor interests packing our courts. The Federalist Society is at the core of an operation devoted to controlling judicial outcomes in right-wing special interests’ favor – an operation fueled by a quarter billion dollars of dark money. The Committee’s decision allows judges to be active agents of that secretive operation, and allows the donor interests who put those judges on the bench to continue to rack up wins at the rest of America’s expense. The capture of our courts continues.”
In May, Whitehouse led a group of senators in urging the Committee to finalize the important guidance. The group detailed in a comment letter the outsized role the right-wing Federalist Society has come to play in cultivating, confirming, and lobbying judges nominated by President Donald Trump.
