Author: Jackson Baker

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Politics Politics Feature

Mulroy Responds

DA Mulroy in Germantown (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Some six days after District Attorney Steve Mulroy was verbally eviscerated at the Shelby County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day banquet, Mulroy had the opportunity, before a Democratic audience, to be celebrated instead and to respond to GOP calls for his official ouster.

Mulroy had arrived as an attendee at last Wednesday night’s monthly meeting of the Germantown Democratic Club at Coletta’s on Appling when the event’s designated speaker, state Senator Sara Kyle, temporarily ceased speaking and invited him to come to the front of the room and address the large crowd on hand.

He began by thanking the audience for an extended round of applause — “It stiffens my soul” — and acknowledging his current predicament — “These are trying times right now.”

Even before the events of the last few weeks, he said, “Strangers come up to me all the time. And they say, ‘Man, I wouldn’t have your job.’ I get it. There’s no lack of stress in the job. But, you know, obviously, things have ratcheted up lately.” 

He pronounced a vow by Republican state Senator Brent Taylor to launch an ouster mechanism in the next General Assembly as “pure partisan politics” and continued, “It’s unprecedented in Tennessee history to remove somebody over what are essentially policy differences. It’s never been done. Under what we call the ‘for-cause standard,’ you have to identify specific acts or omissions that are official misconduct, or wholesale dereliction of duty.

“You know, the triggering event” — a tentative proposal to offer official diversion to nonviolent felons caught with illegal firearms — “was a program which I’ve now withdrawn. So as far as I’m concerned, there’s no need to talk about it anymore. But if anybody wants me to explain it, either now or one-on-one, I will, but the main takeaway is, don’t get caught up in arguments about these discrete little issues here and there. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. But the overarching theme is there’s no official misconduct.”

Mulroy professed to be “offended on behalf of my staff … because I happen to have 230 hardworking staff in those courtrooms every day, doing the best they can to keep Shelby County safe.”

“But, you know,” he said, “nothing’s going to happen for another six months. Six months is a long time. A lot can happen in that time. What I would ask you to do is spread the word. There’s going to be a lot of BS on social media. Over the next six months, I’d like to deputize you all to be my social media warriors, as it were, and counter the BS because at the end of the day, either Shelby County’s district attorney is chosen by the voters of Shelby County or is chosen by politicians in Nashville.” 

The governing politicians of the Republican supermajority came in for criticism as well from Kyle, a candidate for re-election this year, when she resumed her remarks. She condemned a variety of alleged GOP misprisions, including corporate tax rebates granted at the expense of maternal healthcare, inaction on gun safety bills, and Governor Bill Lee’s push for student vouchers.

Although she didn’t address the matter in her speech, the senator is devoting significant time these days to caring for her husband, Chancellor Jim Kyle, who is afflicted with CIDP (chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy) and has had to suspend his judicial caseload. More on this anon. 

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Politics Politics Feature

Hot Night, Hot Words

David Kustoff and Governor Noem at Lincoln Day (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Say this about the Shelby County GOP: Demographic shifts in recent years have made it difficult to impossible for local Republicans to win a countywide race. 

But they sure can turn out in impressive numbers for their annual Lincoln Day banquet, the most recent installment of which was held Sunday at the East Memphis Hilton on Ridge Lake Boulevard.

The keynoter this year was Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, who, after being introduced to the crowd by 8th District Congressman David Kustoff, said she intended to have “a family discussion” with them.

“If you know anything about me, you probably know that I’m a farmer and rancher who has run businesses my whole life,” she said, and, indeed, an introductory video had included some interesting rustic images of her, notably one of her galloping aboard a high-spirited horse across the Dakota plains.

Actually, she is best known — both locally and everywhere else — as having quite recently been a likely, maybe even probable, choice of Donald Trump to be his vice presidential running mate in the forthcoming election.

But that was before news leaks of the content in her just-published memoir, No Going Back, which contained, among other things, her account of having shot to death — executed, as shocked critics, not all of them Democrats, would allege — a young hunting dog that, for various reasons, she had become dissatisfied with.

And the deed was done at a gravel pit. Not the best family-style imagery to boost her veep chances, even for the hyper-aggressive Trump. So, even though Noem’s notoriety made her a good draw for this year’s banquet, there was no going back for her vice-presidential boom.

The MAGA-minded Noem’s own accounting for her choice of book title was to forswear any going back to “the Mitt Romneys and the Cheneys and the Bushes” and their purportedly go-along-to-get-along ways.

Recalling a once-famous phrase of the late GOP icon Barry Goldwater, moderation in the pursuit of Republican goals was treated as anything but a virtue Sunday night. State Republican chairman Scott Golden riled the crowd up with his assertion that no fewer than “103 liberal, Communist left-wing groups” had registered to protest at this summer’s forthcoming GOP convention.

And there was a culminating speech from state Senator Brent Taylor, whose persona and nonstop crusade to oust Democratic District Attorney Steve Mulroy are both ubiquitous phenomena these days. 

Taylor, who was presented with an award Sunday night for his “outstanding public service” and, with his significant financial support of the gala, was designated as the event’s “title sponsor,” did his best to make his anti-Mulroy vendetta a predominant theme of the evening. 

Last week, as the senator reminded his audience, he had sworn to introduce legislation next year to remove Mulroy from office via two-thirds votes in both chambers of the legislature. 

With an assist from Golden, who had characterized Mulroy as a “Soros-minded” DA — meaning a tool of philanthropist-mega-activist George Soros, an international bogeyman for conservatives — Taylor invited the crowd to share his enthusiasm for a purge of Mulroy. The DA was savaged for sins ranging from alleged softness in bail policy to an abortive proposal to offer a diversion program to previous nonviolent offenders apprehended for illegal possession of firearms.

“Make no mistake!” thundered Taylor. “Our community is less safe” because of the DA with his “restorative justice system.” He called for “maintaining the Memphis middle class by making Mulroy meaningless.”

Since the dinner, Taylor has upped the ante, establishing a “hotline” to receive input from crime victims, current or former staff members, or “anyone with information relative to the ouster resolution.”

Meanwhile, after the fire and brimstone of the Lincoln Day gala, attendees have the opportunity, for better or for worse , to enjoy some quiet reading time. Each person present received a copy of Governor Noem’s book, which is subtitled “The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.” 

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Politics Politics Feature

‘Just Politics,’ Mulroy Says of Taylor Ouster Plan

Sen. Taylor and Rep. Gillespie on Monday (Photo: Jackson Baker)

District Attorney Steve Mulroy, a Democrat, announced on Monday that he was dropping plans to create a diversion program for previous nonviolent offenders accused of illegal possession of firearms.

But that didn’t stop Republican state Senator Brent Taylor from following through with detailing his previously indicated plan to seek Mulroy’s ouster through legislative means.

“He didn’t pull it because he didn’t think it would have the effect he wanted. He pulled it because I’m on his ass,” Taylor proclaimed bluntly.

There was a significant irony at the heart of Monday’s press conference, which Taylor conducted before a full battery of media at the Jefferson Avenue headquarters of the Memphis Police Association.

And that was that Senator Taylor had characterized the putative diversion program for gun-wielding felons as “the last straw” making his ouster resolution necessary but now insisted his demand for Mulroy’s ouster “was never about the diversion program but … about the DA’s attempt to redefine what crime-and-punishment is in this state.”

Asked by a reporter to detail what some of those other attempts in that regard by Mulroy might have been, Taylor declined, saying, “I’m not going to follow you into that rabbit hole.”

Taylor characterized his ouster effort as being the consequence of numerous conversations he’d had, not only with ordinary citizens and businesspeople but with such legislative eminences as state House Speaker Cameron Sexton and state Senate Speaker/Lt. Governor Randy McNally.

“I believe it’s a conversation, quite frankly, that people have been having in their own homes for a long time,” Taylor said. He described having brought down several legislative colleagues for a look-see, “and every one of them, without fail, have said that Memphis’ crime challenge is much greater than [I] said it was.”

Taylor’s ouster plan, which he vowed to introduce in the next regular session of the General Assembly in January, would require a two-thirds majority in both the state House and the state Senate to succeed. Mulroy, he said, would have full due process by way of defending himself.

Republican state Rep. John Gillespie, who is second only to Senator Taylor, perhaps, in the amount of legislation he has sponsored to impose state authority over law enforcement in Memphis, briefly addressed the press contingent at Taylor’s suggestion, saying the ouster process would be “a drastic measure, but the state has to step in.” He maintained that “until Memphis is safer, I’m going to continue to do everything I can legislatively and through avenues such as this [one] that Senator Taylor has proposed.”

(Though stopping short of endorsing outright Taylor’s ouster proposal, Police Association head Matt Cunningham said he was in general agreement with Senator Taylor’s sentiments on crime control and seemed to suggest that the MPA’s provision of a venue for Taylor on Monday spoke for itself.)

Mulroy would issue a statement later Monday that said of Taylor’s plan, “This is politics, pure and simple. We were No. 1 in the country for violent crime for years before I took office … Rather than disrespecting Shelby County voters by trying to overturn a local election, Sen. Taylor should focus on getting state funding for a local crime lab, raising penalties on ‘Glock switches,’ and letting Shelby County pass sensible gun regulations to stop the flood of guns threatening our safety.”

• After the press conference, Gillespie was asked about his motives in having acquiesced in his GOP colleagues’ carrying out a reapportionment process that many observers, including Jesse Huseth, a Democratic candidate this year for his seat, saw as making District 97 marginally more favorable to Democrats.

Gillespie, who acknowledged that he is considered by some to be a relative political moderate, said he felt comfortable with the district’s demographics. He noted that he has had a Republican primary opponent (the presumably more conservative Christina Oppenhuizen), but, as the year’s politics have developed, he is now more concerned about the threat from the more visibly active Huseth.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Sen. Taylor Reveals Plan for Ousting DA Mulroy

Brent Taylor exiting the SCEC (Credit: Jackson Baker)

State Senator Brent Taylor confided to the Memphis Flyer on Sunday the basic outlines of the procedure he intends to set in motion to remove Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy  from office. 

The plan, as the senator indicated,  will depend on legislative action in a coming session of the General Assembly, either a regular session or a specially called one. 

Taylor, a persistent  critic of Mulroy for what the senator considers laxity in local law enforcement, says his plan is based on Article VI, Section 6, of the state constitution and would call for a removal  resolution to be passed by both chambers of the legislature, to be followed by gubernatorial action to appoint a successor as Shelby  DA.

State House Speaker Cameron Sexton has also acknowledged discussing the idea of ousting Mulroy with state Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. Taylor promised to elaborate on details of his thinking and Sexton’s at a press conference at 2 p.m. Monday at the headquarters of the Memphis Police Association on Jefferson Avenue.

Both Taylor and Sexton fired off condemnations last week of Mulroy’s announcement of a diversionary program for non-violent previous offenders charged with illegal possession of firearms.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

“Bogus Ballots” Continued

Never say die — particularly if you’re talking about that unkillable scourge of local elections, the bogus ballot.

That’s the term of art for those privately prepared and printed broadsheets containing the mugs of assorted candidates that various entrepreneurs pass out to voters at election time.

The balloteers charge the favored candidates a pretty penny — actually, several thousand dollars apiece — for the honor of appearing on these sample ballots as “endorsees.” 

It’s all a matter of commerce. Not much actual evaluation is involved, with the exception, perhaps, of a few — a very few — candidates who get included gratis, perhaps to salve the consciences of the money-making balloteers.

In recent years, critics of the process — ranging from occasional candidate John Marek to the Shelby County Democratic Party itself —  have gone to court in an effort to bring things to a halt, mainly because several of the ballot-mongering entrepreneurs have included misleading imagery and language making it appear that their profit-making sheets are actually the legitimate handiwork of the Democratic Party.

The plaintiffs had considerable difficulty getting hearings on the matter because so many local judges were customers of the ballot makers.

But at length, a special judge, William Acree, was brought in from Jackson and issued a permanent injunction against further publication of  bogus ballots that simulated Democratic Party efforts.

Such constraints as resulted, including still-pending action against  balloteer Greg Grant, have slowed to a halt, however, for several reasons: Judge Acree has retired, and the litigants who sought the injunction are now hors de combat.

Plaintiff Marek, a lawyer whose efforts have been pro bono, is seeking to withdraw, and his partner in litigation, Jake Brown, has already done so as of last week, having been cut loose by the local Democratic Party, which has opted under current party chair Lexie Carter to pay for no more litigation.

Meanwhile, with elections approaching in August and November, privately printed sample ballots are out there again in force, some of them heeding the injunction against feigning Democratic Party involvement, and some not. (See image of ballot from entrepreneur M. Latroy Alexandria-Williams, whose “Memphis Democratic Club” and “Shelby County Democratic Club” are shell organization with no real existence.)

And the old saw that “you get what you pay for” still reigns among local  candidates for office.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Woof! The Shelby County GOP is Serving Up Kristi Noem, No Less


Shelby County Republicans,  who normally hold their annual Lincoln Day banquet reasonably close to the birthday of their eminent founder, Abraham Lincoln, in February, are running late this year. The celebratory event is scheduled for the night of Sunday, June 23rd, at the Hilton Hotel on Ridge Lake Boulevard.

Perhaps as compensation, they’re doubling up on the number of keynote speakers, offering not only state Senator Brent Taylor of Memphis, the dinner’s official sponsor and financial backer, but also  — local dog lovers, take note — Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota.

Both principals have made more than their share of headlines this year — Taylor as a would-be crimefighter and sponsor of numerous bills to impose greater state authority on Memphis law enforcement, and Noem  as the currently most famous (or notorious) adversary of uppity canines.

There is a well-known saying that goes, “If you want a friend in  Washington, get a dog.” That piece of advice is not a good fit for Noem, who purportedly aspires to serve in the nation’s capital as vice president for a reelected President Donald J. Trump and, perhaps to enhance her credentials,  published a memoir this year, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward. 

In most estimates, Noem’s strategy misfired badly — mainly due to her candor about having shot to death a dog  that she deemed too feisty and not skillful enough as  a hunting dog. To make things worse, the execution — for such it was in the eyes of Noem’s critics — was carried out in a gravel pit, under the watchful eyes of some construction workers.

Photo by Michelle Tresemer on Unsplash

Public reaction to Noem’s disclosure has been almost unanimously negative, but what’s done is done. There is, in the words of her title, no going back. And, to give Noem her due, she persists in trying to move forward, if not America, then her own future prospects.

Local Republicans will have an opportunity to judge for themselves on June 23.

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Politics Politics Feature

Update: Who Heads the MPD?

Judge Carol Chumney, at the dais, was among the many members of the political community to pay homage to the late Dr. Joe Weinberg, civic activist supreme, at the Great Hall of Germantown Monday night. (Photo: Jackson Baker)

It may be only a semantic issue, but, then again, there could be legal ramifications from the matter of what title interim Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis goes by, should she be approved by the city council in its pending retry of her reappointment.

In January, Davis, originally an appointee of former Mayor Jim Strickland, was rejected by the council when then newly inaugurated Mayor Paul Young submitted her name for reappointment.

Young subsequently designated Davis as interim MPD head and indicated he would ask the council to reconsider. Reportedly he will resubmit her name when the city’s ongoing budget deliberations are concluded.

Meanwhile, Young has also announced that he intends to name a public safety director (or public safety advisor). The job’s exact nomenclature, like the timeline for that appointment and the outlines of the public safety official’s intended relationship to the MPD chief, remains somewhat uncertain.

The city charter mandates that the head of police services be referred to by the title “director,” and every supervisor of MPD operations — uniformed or otherwise — since E. Winslow “Buddy” Chapman during the mayoralty of Wyeth Chandler (1972-1982) has borne that title. Except for C.J. Davis, who allegedly indicated a preference for the title “chief’ when she was hired.

No one seems to remember what title was used in the Strickland-era council’s deliberations — nor, for that matter, in the deliberations of the current council earlier this year. But questions arise:

If and when Mayor Young’s appointment of the putative new public safety official comes to pass, will there be a power struggle with the police chief, as there was between Director Chapman and then-Chief Bill Crumby Jr. before Chapman won out?

Unless Davis is resubmitted as police director, does she even need to be approved by the council to continue serving as chief?

Legal briefs

• The ouster trial of Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert has been scheduled to begin on August 26th in the court of Circuit Court Judge Felicia Corbin-Johnson, who rejected a motion to dismiss the petition filed by special prosecutor Coty Wamp of Hamilton County. Meanwhile, a motion to suspend Halbert while the case is ongoing was set for June 25th.

• A resentencing hearing for former state Senator Katrina Robinson has been scheduled by Chief U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman for September 20th. Robinson had previously been convicted on two wire-fraud charges in connection with her nursing-school operation and sentenced to time served and a year’s probation.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals later restored an additional count she had been convicted of before it was thrown out. Robinson, a Democrat, was expelled from the Republican-dominated Senate after her original conviction on the wire-fraud charges. She is seeking a new trial on one remaining count.

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Politics Politics Feature

State and Local

Karen Camper (Photo: capitol.tn.gov)

When Karen Camper, the Democrats’ leader in the state House, ran for Memphis mayor last year, she discovered that, her impressive credentials notwithstanding, she lacked the citywide name recognition of locally based officials.

Consequently, she never developed enough traction to compete effectively for the mayoralty. And her name recognition problem was exacerbated further by the fact that members of the General Assembly are prohibited from active fundraising during the course of a legislative session.

The reality, especially in the case of the minority party statewide, is that state legislators, however much they may shine in the environs of Nashville, simply lack enough day-to-day connection with local voters to become household names on their home front.

A possible exception to that rule may arise in the case of a legislator whose public activities impinge directly on a festering local issue — as in the case of Republican state Senator Brent Taylor, whose nonstop efforts as the sponsor of bills to affect the status of local law enforcement have doubtless earned him a certain local notoriety.

Taylor’s party cohort John Gillespie, equally active on similar issues in the state House of Representatives, is on the fall ballot as a candidate for re-election and has attracted similar attention, for better or for worse.

The aforementioned Rep. Camper, meanwhile, is attempting to familiarize her constituents in House District 87 with the activities of state government by means of an innovation she calls “State to the Streets,” an event she will unveil on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at New Direction Christian Church.

She calls it “a unique opportunity” for residents of District 87 to engage with more than 20 state and local government agencies, ask questions, voice concerns, and receive assistance on a wide range of topics, including healthcare, education, employment, and social services.

Among the services that will be spoken on by representatives of the affected state agencies are:

• Job search opportunities from the TN Department of Labor and Workforce Development

• SNAP benefits and Families First assistance from the TN Department of Human Services

• Help processing REAL IDs from The TN Department of Safety & Homeland Security

• Mental health, addiction, and substance abuse counseling from the TN Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and the TN Sports Wagering Council

• Legal advice from the Memphis Bar Association

• Expungement and Drive While You Pay assistance from the General Sessions Court Clerk’s Office

• Help searching unclaimed property listings from the TN Department of the Treasury

• Voter registration and information from the TN Secretary of State’s office and the Shelby County Voter Registrar

“This is a great chance for me to talk with my constituents and hear their thoughts about the recently concluded legislative session and the direction of the state,” says Camper, and she may have something there.

• With the fiscal-year deadline approaching, Monday’s regular meeting of the Shelby County Commission saw action on many matters — including the county’s proposed tax rate and numerous budgetary items — deferred for further discussion at the commission’s June 12th committee sessions, but one long-standing uncertainty was finally dealt with.

This was the question of $2.7 million in funding from opioid-settlement funds that had been embedded in the sheriff’s department budget, pending the commission’s decision on where to route them — whether to a proposed program for remedial medical treatment of inmates deemed incompetent to stand trial, or elsewhere.

Elsewhere was the answer, with $5 million going to CAAP (Cocaine and Alcohol Awareness Program), and another $18 million to juvenile court, where it will pay for a variety of wraparound services for youthful wards of the court.

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Politics Politics Feature

A Visit from Gloria

Gloria Johnson at The Broom Closet (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Back in April of 2023, state Representative Gloria Johnson of Knoxville got to be a known quantity, not only statewide but to the nation at large, as a member of the “Tennessee Three,” the trio of Democratic legislators whose zeal for gun reform made them targets for expulsion by the GOP House supermajority.

She survived the expulsion vote, as her cohorts did not, either because — as some believe — they were African-American and she was not or — as the Republican whose dissenting vote saved her maintained — because she differed from them in not having challenged the “decorum” of the House quite as seriously.

Whatever the reality, Johnson fully shared the outrage of fellow protesters Justin Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville at Republican inaction following a lethal shooting rampage at Nashville’s Covenant School. And the lesser degree of her martyrdom would give her at least a measure of the national recognition earned by the two Justins, both of whom were immediately returned to office by their local legislative bodies.

The publicity generated by the expulsion incident doubtless was a factor in Johnson’s subsequent decision to seek the U.S. Senate seat currently held by the arch-conservative Republican Marsha Blackburn. But long before the bump in her statewide name recognition, the veteran legislator had earned respect in the House for her unstinting dedication to progressive principles.

Over the years, Johnson, a Knoxville special education teacher, had frequently gotten under the skin of Republican leaders, to the point that they had managed to reapportion her out of her seat, leaving her residence six blocks out of her home district. Undeterred, she sat out a session, moved, and was re-elected from a new, adjacent district.

Johnson’s campaign for the Senate brought her to Memphis over the Memorial Day weekend, and at one of her stops, a Saturday meet-and-greet affair at The Broom Closet on South Main, she undertook to explain both her own mission and the failings of Senator Blackburn, whom she accused of being dishonest and a “fearmonger” in the senator’s speeches, press releases, and frequent blog postings in which Blackburn accuses Democrats of a multitude of sins, up to and including disloyalty.

“Instead of focusing on hate and division,” Johnson said, “we need to be focusing on bringing people together, keeping people healthy and educated and earning a living wage, with access to things like paid family leave and childcare infrastructure.”

As an example of the incumbent’s dishonesty, Johnson recalled having seen a video in which “Marsha Blackburn actually said that we’re in a cooling period, that here’s no such thing as global warming. She said that back when she ran in 2018. Bless her heart, science is real. Just to let y’all know, I believe in science and research and data and use it daily. Yes.”

Johnson, who is simultaneously running for re-election to her state House seat, included the GOP legislative supermajority in the General Assembly in her criticism, notably, for their refusal to accept Medicaid expansion.

“Literally, Tennesseans are dying, while we refuse to expand Medicaid. And, you know, it is fair to say that their policies are certainly putting women and girls at risk. They’re putting the LGBTQ community at risk.”

She cited a recent Vanderbilt University poll which, she said, showed state voters favoring “not only medical cannabis, but recreational cannabis. They favor Medicaid expansion. Protecting the public schools. Things like universal background checks and [gun] safe storage, and extreme risk-protection orders or red flag laws.”

The same poll, she said, had her edging out Blackburn with women voters, 49 percent to 43 percent, and close behind the incumbent with other demographic groups.

(It should be noted that the prospect of Johnson’s doing well in a general election race depends, of course, on her winning out in the August Democratic primary, where she is opposed by Marquita Bradshaw of Memphis, who derailed the senatorial hopes of Nashville’s James Mackler by upsetting him in the primary in 2018. Bradshaw was easily beaten in that year’s general election by Republican Bill Hagerty.)

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News Politics Politics Beat Blog

Cohen Introduces Resolution Censuring Alito

Steve Cohen | Photo: U.S. House of Representatives

More than a few flutters of reaction have resulted from recent news of Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s  having flown an upside-down American flag at his residence in apparent support of the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the nation’s Capitol.

And if Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen has his way, a truly stiff wind could be blowing Alito’s way via an official congressional reprimand.

Cohen has introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives a resolution of censure, charging  the arch-conservative Alito with bias, improper political activity, and a “breach of judicial ethics” for flying the upside-down flag, widely recognized as a symbol of the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” movement, in the aftermath of the insurrection.

The resolution would censure Alito “for knowingly violating the federal recusal statute and binding ethics standards and calling the impartiality of the Supreme Court of the United States into question by continuing to participate in cases in which his prior public conduct could be reasonably interpreted to demonstrate bias.” It also demands that Alito  recuse himself from all litigation related to the 2020 election or the January insurrection.

Accusing Justice Alito of “poor judgment,” Cohen, a member of the house Judiciary Committee, said, “There must be accountability to protect the integrity and impartiality of the High Court. We must protect the Constitutional rights to fair and impartial proceedings.”

Responding to the high volume of criticism he has received, Alito has attempted to blame his wife for flying the upside-down flag in reaction to a neighbor’s yard signs criticizing the justice.

Among the many favorable reactions to the Cohen resolution was this one from Alex Aronson, executive director of  Court Accountability: “We commend Representative Cohen for introducing this resolution censuring Justice Alito and calling for his recusal. It is good to see members of the House Judiciary Committee taking a leadership role in holding out-of-control Supreme Court justices accountable, and this resolution is an excellent first step.”