US: AOC slams Supreme Court, says it is ‘creeping dangerously towards authoritarianism’

Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday said that the conservative Supreme Court is “creeping dangerously towards authoritarianism”, as she again raised the scenario of impeaching justices for recent actions.

The congresswoman's comments came just days after the highest court of the country gave some incendiary and far-reaching rulings which struck down affirmative action in Joe Biden’s student loan relief programme, LBGTQ+ rights and college admissions.

“These are the types of rulings that signal a dangerous creep towards authoritarianism and centralisation of power in the court,” she said while speaking at CNN’s State of the Union. “In fact, we have members of the court themselves, with Justice Elena Kagan, saying that the court is beginning to assume the power of a legislature right now,” the congresswoman added.

“They are expanding their role into acting as though they are Congress itself. And that, I believe, is an expansion of power that we really must be focusing on, the danger of this court and the abuse of power,” Ocasio-Cortez stated.

Ethics scandals and need to expand court

Talking about the ethics scandals which involved two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez reiterated her calls for Congress to take steps for removing them, a proposal which is likely to be dead when it reaches the Republican-controlled House.

Meanwhile, independents and Senate Democrats, who caucus with them, hold only a slim majority. Alito has been facing accusations of receiving gifts from a right-wing billionaire and not disclosing them. As per reports, the billionaire had lobbied for the court to end the loan relief programme of Biden. Thomas has been alleged to have taken undeclared gifts and getting involved in other alleged transgressions, which prompted an ethics watchdog to appeal to him to resign.

“We must pass much more binding and stringent ethics guidelines, where we see members of the supreme court potentially breaking the law,” AOC stated.

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“There also must be impeachment on the table. We have a broad level of tools to deal with misconduct, overreach and abuse of power in the supreme court (that) has not been receiving the adequate oversight necessary in order to preserve their own legitimacy. And in the process, they themselves have been destroying the legitimacy of the court, which is profoundly dangerous for our entire democracy,” said Ocasio-Cortez.

The congresswoman also appealed to US President Joe Biden to have 13 justices in the court, something that the president has stated he is unwilling to attempt.

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