Murphy says Alito’s Supreme Court seat ‘exists only because of an act passed by Congress’

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Sunday sharply criticized Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s assertion this week that Congress does not have authority to regulate the Supreme Court and noted that Alito’s seat on the court exists only because Congress determined the number of justices that sit on the high court. 

“First of all, it’s just stunningly wrong. And he should know that more than anyone else because his seat on the Supreme Court exists only because of an act passed by Congress. It is Congress that establishes the number of justices on the Supreme Court. It is Congress that has passed in the past requirements for justices to disclose certain information,” Murphy said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“It is just wrong on the facts to say that Congress doesn’t have anything to do with the rules guiding the Supreme Court. In fact, from the very beginning, Congress has set those rules,” Murphy added. 

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Murphy’s statement comes after Alito, in a Wall Street Journal interview Friday, pushed back on efforts by Senate Democrats to enact stronger ethics rules on the high court after reporting emerged that conservative justices accepted gifts from GOP donors without disclosing them.

“I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it,” Alito said in the interview. “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”

On Sunday, Murphy specifically took issue with the fact that Alito was weighing in on a congressional debate, saying it’s “disturbing that Alito feels the need to insert himself into a congressional debate, and it is just more evidence that these justices on the Supreme Court, these conservative justices, just see themselves as politicians.”

“They just see themselves as a second legislative body that has just as much power and right to impose their political will on the country, as Congress does. They’re going to bend the law in order to impose their right-wing view of how the country should work on the rest of us,” Murphy added. “And it’s why we need to pass this common-sense ethics legislation to at least make sure we know that these guys aren’t in bed having their lifestyles paid for by conservative donors, as we have unfortunately seen in these latest revelations.”