Polls show that public confidence in the Supreme Court has fallen in recent years. But political power in Washington remains divided, and Republicans accuse Democrats of grinding a partisan ax. Given all this, is there a way to restore confidence in the Supreme Court, and to restore more ideological balance to the court? These are only two of the big questions playing out in Washington. Time is quickly ticking down ahead of a potential U.S. credit default. Can the Biden administration and DC Republicans reach a solution before the U.S. economy stumbles into unknown territory? I’m Ian Donnis and this week I’m going in-depth with Democratic U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
Transcript:
Ian Donnis: Welcome back to The Public’s Radio. From zero to 100%. How likely do you consider it that a solution to the debt ceiling showdown will not come about?
Sen. Whitehouse: The solution won’t come about? I think it’s more likely than not that a solution will come about. But I think the chances of a fumble are very real. And I think that Speaker McCarthy is in miles over his head. And it’s not clear that he can negotiate a deal. And it’s not clear that if he could he can deliver one through the house. So there could be some very awkward and anxious moments for markets.
Ian Donnis: Americans tend to credit or blame presidents for economic issues. Are you concerned that if there is a default that this will be very bad for President Biden?
Sen. Whitehouse: Absolutely.
Ian Donnis: On a related note, a lot of Americans seem to want to move on from the era of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. President Biden is 80 Donald Trump is 76. Are Democrats playing with fire by sticking with a candidate who would be 86 by the end of a potential second term?
Sen. Whitehouse: Well, conceivably, but I think if President Biden’s health stays solid through the November election, he’s got a pretty good record to run on. And I think there are very important issues that distinguish Democrats from Republicans that he can use to very powerful effect. And if the nominee is Trump, well, then pretty much anything is better than that, particularly once he’s dragging lots of lawsuits and indictments around with him, which he will be by then. So I think a good deal of that will depend on how we get through this default debt limit crisis. If that doesn’t turn out with as a success, then I think that’s going to start the path to November 24. off on a very, very bad footing.
Ian Donnis: Let’s shift to a topic that you’ve expressed concern about for a long time, the US Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts this week said during a speech that he and his colleagues are taking steps to address recent ethics controversies involving Clarence Thomas and some other justices. Do you think the court is up to the task of policing itself moving forward?
Sen. Whitehouse: I don’t think the court on its own is up to the task of policing itself. But what Chief Justice Roberts said — in that world, a whisper is a roar. And he basically said, it’s everything is not okay, we know we’re gonna have to fix this. And we will. That’s a very important turning point. And the court has the Judicial Conference, which runs the administrative side of the federal judiciary, the Chief Justice chairs, the Judicial Conference, and the Judicial Conference has the ability to impose real ethics process on the Supreme Court. And that would come from inside the judicial branch, that would be the best way to resolve this. And I think there are signs emerging that the Judicial Conference is ready to step up, because I think the other judges are sick of the nonsense at the Supreme Court.
Ian Donnis: If what you’re just just described doesn’t come about, is there any common ground given the partisan division in Washington, between Democrats and Republicans for other forms of what you would consider appropriate oversight of the Supreme Court?
Sen. Whitehouse: Well, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has publicly applauded my legislation to require better ethics disclosure, from Supreme Court justices. I think, once you get beyond that, it’s a pretty hostile political environment. So it may take further revelations about Supreme Court misconduct before there’s a sufficient public pressure to get those reforms done, but done by the Judicial Conference or done by Congress one way or the other. They absolutely have to be done.
Ian Donnis: How do you respond to the view from the other side of the aisle that Democrats such as yourself are worked up about this because the subjects of controversy are conservative justices, and that when there have been past controversies involving liberal justices, Democrats have been a lot less concerned?
Sen. Whitehouse: Well, I know that that’s their talking point. But if you actually look at the facts of the matter, there has never been an instance in the history of the judicial branch of the United States, where anything like the type of misconduct engaged in by Justice Thomas has taken place. The notion that multiple multi-$100,000 vacations, the rent free care of his mother, the tuition paid for the child he’s raising as his son. That’s all we know of so far, there could well be a good deal more that they’re refusing to disclose at this point. So I think one of the reasons that the other judges are so upset with the Supreme Court is that they too know that what has been going on at the Supreme Court is unacceptable, by any rational definition of ethics.
Ian Donnis: A poll out this week by NPR, PBS newshour and Marist finds that six in ten Americans say controlling gun violence is more important than protecting gun rights. Is it just a matter of time, given the frequency of mass shootings, that public support helps to bring about enhanced gun restrictions?
Sen. Whitehouse: I hope and pray that is the case. But over and over politics has proven that a concentrated and well funded special interest, particularly in the current environment, where you can be a well funded special interest who can hide your spending behind phony names of front groups and obscure who you are. I think we’ve shown over and over again that whether it’s dark money or guns or women’s reproductive rights, people are– the system is too often unresponsive to popular will, where there is big, special interest money involved.
Ian Donnis: We’ve seen how Rhode Island’s two largest hospital groups, Lifespan and Care New England have lost a lot of money in recent years. A big part of the problem is that a lot of their revenue comes from public payers, Medicare and Medicaid. And that’s less profitable, profitable than private funds, private payers, Attorney General Peter neurona has been sounding the alarm that Rhode Island needs a better long term strategy on health care and hospitals. Is there anything that you or the state’s congressional delegation can do to help improve this situation?
Sen. Whitehouse: Well, I hope so, I’ve been working on healthcare delivery system reform both nationally and in Rhode Island for a long time. And we’ve taken a lot of good steps, I actually hoped that we would have a merger of the two so that they would be protected from outside predatory acquisitions. And they’d be able to pursue the last stage of the delivery system reform with a proper public board. And I think there are signs that and there are ways to improve the performance of those hospitals, if you don’t mind. One of the things that we got into the Obamacare bill was something called accountable care organizations. Two Rhode Island practices, primary care physicians of Rhode Island now called Integra and coastal medical, both became accountable care organizations. And they both dramatically improved care for their patients, reduced the overall cost, sent money back to Medicare. So there are ways that we can lower the cost of health care and lower the cost for hospitals. But we have to do it in a thoughtful, systematic way that improves care for patients. If all you’re doing is cutting services, that’s not going to fly, you’ve got to make sure that you’re improving care for patients. And if you can do that, that’s a pathway where everybody wins.
Ian Donnis: You’re a former US Attorney here in Rhode Island, so you’re no stranger to federal law enforcement. From your perspective. What does the FBI need to do to restore its credibility at a time when it’s under fire from critics on the right and the left?
Sen. Whitehouse: Well, I think the average FBI agent is somebody who I admire very, very much. I think the FBI I worked with them very closely. And I think the FBI has made some political fumbles that have been heavily amplified. And I think they need to come to terms with those fumbles and be clear about them. And I’m still wrestling with them about the way in which the Kavanaugh supplemental background investigation was done. Still trying to get answers how long ago? Been a while. And I’m on the Judiciary Committee, these answers should not be so hard to come by. So it’s it can be a very frustrating organization to deal with, when it puts up its barricades.
Ian Donnis: To come back to the debt ceiling. Part of the problem is that there seems like there’s far less trust between Democrats and Republicans in Washington than there used to be. How do we become less brittle as a nation when there’s so much polarized polarization and division in America?
Sen. Whitehouse: Well, I think if we got dark money out of politics, you would see a very rapid response in the political system, to being much more accountable to the public and less driven by big secret special interests. And I think that would be immediately noticeable to the American public and would bring temperatures down a bit. I think that there are media outlets that feed on creating division. I think of the Infowars operation that actually pretended that the murders of the little children in Connecticut didn’t take place. Thankfully, there was an honest courtroom where the proprietor of that enterprise could be held to account but there’s too much Have that in the atmosphere. But I really think that there’s, there’s legitimate cause for people to be irritated with with the way government is operating. And it’s on us to try to fix that.
Ian Donnis: Diminishing the influence of money in politics is a really tall order given court decisions that you’ve sounded off about, is there any reason to be optimistic about diminishing the influence of money in politics and dark money?
Sen. Whitehouse: There is because voters hate the damn stuff. And I think that gives us if we really were to push the point, the chance to have Republicans fold and stop defending dark money, and enable us to get rid of the wretched stuff. In Arizona in the past election, there was a dark money referendum. And as you know, that was a hotly contested, very close, highly partisan state, with a very, very hard fought election had many, many levels. And in that election, the anti dark money referendum passed 72 to 28. So it’s pretty convincing, thumping in favor of cleaning up the political system. So the the public outrage is there. And we need to put more effort to tap into that, and to force Republicans to come to terms with the fact that it’s just wrong, that huge special interest should be able to spend unlimited amounts of money in politics from in hiding,
Ian Donnis: How do you see that moving forward? Do you see the need for like a mass popular movement it would it be done legislatively, how to get from here to there?
Sen. Whitehouse: I think it can be done legislatively, but you no one has to persist. This isn’t the kind of Issue where we can come in one day, call up my DISCLOSE Act, get a vote on it, do some press and then move on. We have to persist to the point where it sinks in with the American public that one side is trying to get rid of the dark money and the other side is protecting it. And then let the pressure of that come to bear. I think the President’s bully pulpit would be very helpful on that subject and we haven’t heard much from him.
Ian Donnis: That’s all the time we have. So we need to leave it there. Thank you for joining us, Democratic US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
Sen. Whitehouse: Thank you
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When Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee signed a bill last year legalizing adult-use marijuana, supporters cheered. But even then, there were questions about whether the state’s attempt to unwind some of the damage from the war on drugs would live up to the hype. Plans called for the state to select six social equity applicants to be among those operating cannabis retail shops. That plan is running behind schedule, since McKee only recently made his nominations for the commission that will award the licenses. And an advocacy group, the Rhode Island Cannabis Justice Coalition, is calling for the state to do more to promote economic and racial justice in the state’s fledgling adult-use marijuana industry. You can read more about that in my Friday TGIF column, posting around 4 this afternoon on my twitter at IanDon and on our website at the publics radio.org.
