https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/08/religious-right-supreme-court-00044739
“Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister who headed the Faith and Action group headquartered near the Supreme Court from 1995 to 2018, said he arranged over the years for about 20 couples to fly to Washington to visit with and entertain Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia.”
Can we lobby judges that we know will hear our cases in future decisions? Evidently so. If there has been much doubt about whether the Court is above the political arena, it has been erased, in my opinion. Who needs to win elections if you have the judges in your pockets. Reminiscent of Vito Corleone in “The Godfather”.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
I see no impropriety reported in Politico’s article, so I guess the point is that certain people with certain ideas shouldn’t be allowed to interact with the justices.
Hunting witches is such an unseemly business.
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It is not “certain ideas.” It is the litigation over those “certain ideas” that makes these entertainments unethical.
The bottom line here is OBVIOUS except to the willfully blind. The Faith and Action Group is a lobbying organization. They were lobbying and lavishly entertaining members of the Supreme Court. You people who claim that SCOTUS decisions are supposed to be based purely on the law ought to be outraged by such unethical attempts to influence them.
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Sounds to me like they were offering encouragement to justices already in agreement with them.
That is worlds away from harassing those they disagree with at their homes or restaurants. Not to mention terrorizing the kids on the way to church or school.
Or trying t kill them so they can be replaced.
This is a masterpiece in false equivalencies.
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Yes, your comment was a masterpiece of false equivalence.
Protests can and do get out of hand. I don’t think too many were supporting the harassment or threatening activities against anyone. But that is the norm today. Just ask countless election officials and volunteers about death threats from the right. Or “RINOS” needing round the clock security. (Never mind the millions of women assaulted by anti-abortion protesters while seeking healthcare at PP clinics. But who cares about the peons.)
No, this was a program to influence justices with expensive meals and trips (Scalia hunting adventures).
No worries. SCOTUS has no ethical requirements, unlike every other court or government branch. A perfect fit for the elephants, though I hate to malign a dignified species.
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Millions of women assaulted? You mean like being offered pamphlets?
In any case. past crimes would not justify current or future crimes.
The fact remains that it is illegal to harass judges to influence their deliberations, and that law is being ignored by Merrick Garland.
Thank goodness Mitch McConnell kept that lawless, partisan hack off the court.
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Assaulted. You know that it was a lot more than pamphlet offering. Volunteer escorts were needed to get past the wild eyed crazies screaming spittle filled exhortations in the faces of women, some of whom were just getting exams. We should add bombings and killings. But that is not the subject.
Of course it is illegal to harass anyone.
But your distraction is classic. Is it ethical for organizations with cases expected at the Court to wine and dine justices lavishly?
If that is OK with you, then just say so.
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I don’t say I agree with those who harass women going into clinics, but considering that they sincerely believe, correct or not, that babies are being murdered, I find their behavior to be remarkably restrained.
I do not think that Supreme Court Justices can be swayed with a steak. It appears to me that they were approaching justices who already agree with them, I would be more concerned if they were lobbying those who did not agree,
But buying a judge a meal is not in the same league with keeping his kids awake all night with protests outside their homes, which is a Federal crime that Garalnd simply refuses to enforce.
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RE: “Is it ethical for organizations with cases expected at the Court to wine and dine justices lavishly?”
Politico doesn’t mention any such cases. It is certainly not unethical to wine and dine justices lavishly.
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“Schenck said that, in addition to making regular donations to Faith and Action, the Wrights financed numerous expensive dinners with Thomas, Alito, Scalia and their wives at Washington, D.C., hotspots including the Capital Grille”
“The late Antonin Scalia enjoyed hunting and fishing trips with the [Wright] family.”
“…the couples were instructed before the dinners to use certain phrases to influence the justices while steering clear of the specifics of cases pending before the court — for example, to “talk about the importance of a child having a father and a mother,” rather than engage in the particulars of a gay-rights case.”
It is pretty obvious that the goal was to influence judges in making decisions in cases strongly favored by the Evangelicals.
Money, power and influence are the coins of the political realm. But SCOTUS is supposed to be the referee calling “balls and strikes” as Roberts once said. If Steinbrenner took major league umpires on a hunting trip all expenses paid before a world series was due to start, eyes would roll. (He may have done, I don’t know.)
I think eyes should do the same here. SCOTUS is, after all, the final arbiter of our nations laws, policies and justice.
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“. . .but considering that they sincerely believe, correct or not, that babies are being murdered, I find their behavior to be remarkably restrained.”
I guess you are just too busy studying your navel to stop and think how truly dangerous this sort of excuse making is? You also alluded to the “remarkably restrained” behavior of those “tourists and trespassers” at the Capitol who “sincerely believe” that the election was stolen. Or those Nazis in Charlottesville who “sincerely believe” that Jews are out to replace them. Hell, they only killed one person.
It is time to stop making excuses for terrorism. Take it as given that terrorists “sincerely believe” their violence is justified.
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RE: “It is pretty obvious that the goal was to influence judges in making decisions in cases strongly favored by the Evangelicals.”
I don’t think it is obvious at all, but if you can explain, I’ll listen. Here are some things you’ll need to cover to be convincing:
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Read the article again. The head of the lobbying group himself said:
“…the couples were instructed before the dinners to use certain phrases to influence the justices…”
I’ll take that as evidence of the goals of the lobbying group and wealthy Evangelicals to influence the justices.
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“I’ll listen.”
There is a first time for everything.
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RE: “I’ll take that as evidence of the goals of the lobbying group and wealthy Evangelicals to influence the justices.”
Goals. Is that all?
Not even real, provable goals, just ones you infer.
Not even real improprieties, just the imaginary impropriety of having goals you disapprove of.
God save us.
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Are you ok?
The head of the lobbying group said in his own words that the goal was to influence the justices.
What is the problem?
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You mean statements made by those in charge of the lobbying and what they were trying to do is not enough? Aghast, I am. Or is that a gassed?😇
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The Faith and Action Group is a lobbying organization. They were lobbying and lavishly entertaining members of the Supreme Court when their members had litigation in the system that could end up before the Court. That would be criminal if it were any other court.
This story puts the lie to the claim that recent SCOTUS decisions were just about the law. Nope. Clearly these Christians saw it as a political process like any other.
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You got nothing.
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“You got nothing.”
All I have is the truth. It is unethical to try to influence a judge with goodies. It is unethical for a judge to accept emoluments from people with an interest in the decisions of the court.
Does that mean that Justices must be extraordinarily circumspect in their social lives? Yes. It does. It goes with the territory.
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RE: “All I have is the truth.”
What truth is that? You can’t even show the evangelicals were trying to change the outcome of a case.
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The outcome of a case can’t be changed prior to the decision being rendered.
Evangelicals were trying to get their preferred outcome by lobbying justices, even those already prone to agreeing with them. Or being evangelicals themselves (Comey Barrett comes to mind).
The fact that you are in agreement with those decisions is proof enough that an objective viewpoint is impossible from you.
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Perhaps a rephrase would be more accurate.
Certain people with cases coming before the Court shouldn’t pay for entertaining those same justices.
If you sued me and before the trial I invited the judge for a weekend golf trip at Pinehurst you might feel put out.
Lobbying Congress is the accepted route.
Ginny Thomas was a political consultant whose clients had SCOTUS cases. Recusal by her husband would be the ethical choice. Unfortunately the Supreme Court, unlike all other judicial levels has no ethical guidelines.
And it shows.
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Why should a private citizen’s opinion cause Thomas to recuse himself? So because liberal judge’s spouses vote democrat and agree with them the liberal judge should do the same? Get real…
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How many people complained about undue influence that HIllary had over her husband while in the Oval Office? He assigned her things to do for the administration and that took care of that.
But in the Thomas case, there is baltant influence over a justice by his spouse in cases that SHE has personal or professional interest in.
Ethics – Apparently that word does not appear in the Right WIng playbook. Unless it is to file scurillios charges against Democrats.
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So are you really going to portray liberal judges as not “lobbied” in the same context? You know, not wined and dined by liberal persons or organizations? If so, your blind phony outrage is laughable at best and scurrilous deception at least. Just because you don’t like their rule of law decisions doesn’t mean they are being paid for their interpretation of the law. Back off the nonsense…
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“Back off..”?
Really, hitting the bottle early are we.
I think I will stand by my post. Whether others may or may not have done the same is irrelevant as far as this post goes. But I will gladly entertain information to the contrary.
Do you really think RBG or Sotomayor joined Soros on a moose hunt at a private lodge? Perhaps wine and cigars at the Four Seasons?
Maybe.
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RE: “Whether others may or may not have done the same is irrelevant as far as this post goes.”
It’s only irrelevant if the point of the post is to smear evangelicals.
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Exactly!! It is as relevant as it gets!! Don’t be an ass and point fingers when you know your team is just as “lobbied”…
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Maybe not a moose hunt but plenty of other things like trips to mexico, spa memberships, etc. I get it, scurrilous deception it is. That’s the MO.
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Okay. Who was lobbying liberal Justices in a similar way? Do you have any evidence? Cites? Keep in mind this was an organized lobbying effort with people flying in from all over the country for the explicit purpose of influencing the Justices. They even had playbooks of what to say. No what equivalent are you alluding to?
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Now, what equivalent are you alluding to?
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Crickets coming…chirp, chirp.🦗
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Neither I nor you have the resources to invade the private lives of and harass SCOTUS like Politico. Just because a left wing rag doesn’t harass liberal judges like they do conservatives doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen all of the time. I will trust common sense on this one.
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They did not invade or harass the justices. They go their information from the groups doing the lobbying.
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…”common sense on this one.”
Coffee out the nose funny. You? Common sense? I have never seen it displayed by you.
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