Philip Anschutz has hosted rightwing justice at resort and stands to benefit if court strips power from federal regulatory agencies
Two days before oral arguments in a US supreme court case set to have a major impact on federal health and environmental regulation, a leading government watchdog called on Neil Gorsuch to recuse himself over close links to a billionaire oil baron who has hosted the rightwing justice at a mountain resort called Eagles Nest for weekends of dove shooting and who stands to benefit from the ruling at hand.
“Not only would overturning Chevron deference strip power from federal agencies, harming their ability to serve everyday Americans – but now, we know billionaire oil baron Philip Anschutz would score big from a favourable ruling by his friend on the high court,” said Caroline Ciccone, president of Accountable.US.
“It’s far past time for these justices to stop putting their billionaire pals over Americans. Recusal from cases where they have glaring conflicts of interest is the very least they can do to restore some semblance of credibility and integrity to our supreme court.”
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But the case has much wider implications because it is thought likely to remove the Chevron deference, a principle named for a 1984 case involving the eponymous oil giant which established that federal agencies have the discretion to issue regulatory rules without congressional approval.
the days of recusal are over.
that any of these judges will now choose a moral path is kinda out the window. the bubble has been burst, we now know this court is corrupt, and so do they… with little recourse.
Waaa? Didn’t you read the supreme court’s real official and super enforceable and cool ethics standards they published in response to Thomas’s million dollar modest vacations?
I’m sure the upstanding justices will LEAP to follow their own guidelines. /s
They were more like suggestions than standards
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Personally I doubt it. While they don’t necessarily need every vote in the decision, recusal would reinforce the precedent that they have done anything inappropriate - not the tack they have been taking.
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Congress was going to create an agency with the teeth to enforce regulations. So Nixon made the EPA and made sure it couldn’t hold corporations accountable.
This is a bad take. There were already several federal agencies with some teeth, but their powers were hyper focused. The EPA was a consolidation of those agencies.
When the EPA was established and ratified by congress, it was super popular. It passed the house 401-21 and the senate 89-11. Being environmentally conscious was popular across the aisle. There were actually right wing eco terrorists if you can believe it (Ted Kaczynski). Under nixon, ford, and carter, the EPA saw massive expansions of power.
The reason the EPA became a bugbear of the right is Ronald Reagan. EPA was big government at it’s finest and reagan hated that. Reagan was the super sellout to corporate America and Clinton wasn’t a whole lot better with his “the era of big government is over”.
ha, i didnt think about them just feigning recusals. of course!
what a bunch of terrible human beings.
Worse than that, they can all refuse themselves, prevent quorum from being reached, and force the lower court decision to be upheld.
But if the recuses himself then the oil baron would have spent all his money for nothing. Surely, this can’t happen.
That would violate the oil baron’s civil rights!
The Oil Baron isn’t involved in the case before the court.
Whooooosh
Nope, no whooosh. I get the argument I’m simply rejecting it. Philip Anschutz isn’t part of this case and the argument being made here is that in order to screw him that we should also cheer some poor fishermen getting screwed.
That’s not justice.
You know that those cases are often fabricated from the start and it’s possible for a billionaire to bring a case in front of the Supreme Court without legally being involved in one? Not saying it’s the case here but him not being directly involved doesn’t mean his not behind the case.
Let’s say the issue before the court is whether the coca-cola company is liable for health issues in some vulnerable group they targeted with advertising for decades. One of the justices on the court is best friends with the CEO of PepsiCo and gets many valuable gifts from them.
Ruling in Coke’s favor wouldn’t put any money in the pockets of the Justice or the Pepsi CEO, but it would still absolutely be a conflict of interest.
Ruling against Coke could also look like it was affected by a conflict of interest because it hurts Pepsi’s main competitor.
There’s no way to win, it looks bad either way. That’s why transparency and recusal are the rule.
Well unless you’re on the Supreme Court. Then I guess the transparency and recusal are just optimistic requests.
Would’ve thought naming my hunting bunker Eagle’s Nest might make me look too villain-ish.
Zhe “Adlerhorst” - fun place for the whole family.
Weekends of dove shooting? If that’s not a sign of who these people are, idk what is.
Meet me at at my mansion, bring a 12 gauge, we’re gonna go blow away the international symbol of peace. We can keep warm next to the olive branch bonfire. Fuckin hell.
Sorry. The American Mullahs never miss a vote, especially when it’s in their best interest.
EAGLES fucking NEST
Does it have to be more on the nose than that?!
After visiting it, I’ve found there’s a surprising number of places called that.
I’m sure they had a heil of a time.
Kangaroo Court. Every one of them is compromised and illegitimate.
Every one of the Republican nominated justices.
The joint statement that they didn’t want any enforceable ethics rules was signed by all of them.
That means that, while not anywhere near as obviously corrupt and otherwise awful as the Federalist Society ones, the rest of the court is also against transparency and being held to a higher standard than a pinky swear, which isn’t a great sign…
The joint ethics statement was a milquetoast pile of nothing for sure, but it was better than absolutely nothing and lets the Dem nominated justices point out that they believe in ethics with the chance to actually behave ethically while the Republican nominated justices can be hypocrites while violating ethics.
Before the joint ethics statement there wasn’t anything to enforce because there wasn’t even a clear expectation of behavior. Now that there is something, even if it is useless on its own, there is something in writing that could be used as proof that there are some expectations for the justices that could be used for a possible impeachment of corrupt justices.
A pinky swear is better than nothing when arguing intent, even if a bunch of justices signed it because there is no explicit enforcement of pinky swears.
A pinky swear is better than nothing when arguing intent, even if a bunch of justices signed it because there is no explicit enforcement
Not really, since that’s what almost precisely what they already did separately when they were sworn in.
To go through the trouble of affirming what you’ve already affirmed while insisting on no enforcement or consequences in response to a public demand for enforcement and consequences is borderline suspicious behavior…
Chi chi chi Chip and Dale! Recuse rangers… Ah I miss that cartoon!
Yeah not looking forward to Gorsuch’s opinion on this case:
https://www.scotusblog.com/2017/03/roots-limits-gorsuchs-views-chevron-deference/
Chevron deference was a good idea but its been abused and its time for it to be reigned in.
