Four congressional Democrats wrote a scathing letter to President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court reform commission this week, calling out the commission’s failure to address or even examine the degree to which dark money groups with well-funded lobbying campaigns have influenced the court, both in terms of the justices appointed and their decisions. In the letter, Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono, and Georgia Representative Hank Johnson remind the commission that they’ve already called this issue out: “We wrote to you earlier this year to emphasize that the issues your Commission is tasked to consider cannot be addressed without grappling with pressing judicial ethics concerns, including the role of secretive special-interest influence in and around the Court.” The commission released its first discussion drafts last month, showing that it was failing to address some of the Court’s fundamental problems—like the politicization of the court through groups like the Federalist Society—and downplaying others. “As currently drafted, this report is a disappointment to anyone who had hoped for a clear-eyed effort to address the Supreme Court’s deep troubles,” the lawmakers write. “The Commission’s draft report acknowledges in passing that ‘confirmation battles of recent years have given rise to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaigns’ to support and oppose particular nominations,” the lawmakers note. Read more