AOC's Warning to Chief Justice Roberts Amid Calls for Ethics Reform

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, suggested on Sunday that Congress should consider investigations looking into conflicts of interest within the U.S. Supreme Court and possibly issuing a subpoena for Chief Justice John Roberts if he doesn't voluntarily come to those potential congressional hearings.

The Democratic lawmaker suggested that ethics guidelines should be passed to avoid "overreach" by the justices in the wake of the Court's 6-3 ruling on Friday to cancel President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, which would have canceled up to $10,000 in debt borrowers with an income of $125,000 or less and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.

Roberts said in the ruling on Friday that the Biden administration and Education Department Secretary Miguel Cardona asserted that the HEROES Act granted them authority to cancel $430 billion of student loan debt, when "it does not."

"We hold today that the Act allows the Secretary to 'waive or modify' existing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the Education Act, not to rewrite that statute from the ground up," Roberts wrote in his opinion.

On Sunday, CNN's State of the Union host Dana Bash asked Ocasio-Cortez about her thoughts on Roberts' argument that the president doesn't have the unilateral power to forgive student loans and that it's up to Congress to "make this kind of sweeping change."

"What the court was also ruling on was with respect to the HEROES Act. But our response is very strong, in that Congress has given the president that authority in the Higher Education Act. The president very squarely has as well, using his secretary of education, the ability to cancel student loans," she responded, adding that the justices in the Court are going "too far" as they are "expanding their role into acting as though they are Congress."

Ocasio-Cortez continued: "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 in this court, particularly as it—particularly as it is related to the entanglements around conflicts of interest as well."

Bash then asked the congresswoman whether the Court's justices' power should be limited, to which Ocasio-Cortez agreed that it should.

"The courts, if they were to proceed without any check on their power, without any balance on their power, then we will start to see an undemocratic and, frankly, dangerous authoritarian expansion of power in the Supreme Court, which is what we are seeing now, from the overturning of abortion rights, to the ruling that discrimination and, frankly, stripping the full personhood and dignity of LGBTQ people in the United States," she said.

Ocasio-Cortez explained such rulings "signal a dangerous creep towards authoritarianism and centralization of power in the court."

When Bash asked her whether Congress would propose a bill to avoid Supreme Court "overreach," Ocasio-Cortez said the Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating the "entanglements and conflicts of interest" inside the Court.

"I believe that if Justice—if Chief John Roberts will not come before Congress for an investigation voluntarily, I believe that we should be considering subpoenas. We should be considering investigations. We must pass much more binding and stringent ethics guidelines where we see members of Congress—where we see members of the Supreme Court potentially breaking the law," she said.

Earlier this year, the committee reintroduced the Bicameral bill to require justices to comply with the Court's ethical conduct as Democrats called for ethical reforms.

The calls for reforms within the Court come amid accusations that the justices' rulings are being influenced by external motives from Republicans and conservatives. Last month, ProPublica reported that Justice Samuel Alito accepted a luxury fishing trip with GOP billionaire Paul Singer in 2008 that he did not detail in his mandatory annual financial disclosure forms.

Alito has defended himself, saying that the flight to their Alaska trip was "the only occasion" where he accepted transportation for a social event and that he had "no obligation" to recuse himself from cases that had ties with Singer.

Meanwhile in April, Senate Judiciary Democrats urged Roberts to investigate Justice Clarence Thomas' "undisclosed gifts" amid a report from ProPublica that he accepted luxurious trips offered by Republican donor Harlan Crow.

"Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable. I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines," Thomas said in a statement obtained by Newsweek in April in response to the report. "These guidelines are now being changed, as the committee of the Judicial Conference responsible for financial disclosure for the entire federal judiciary just this past month announced new guidance. And, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future."

On Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez added that "there also must be impeachment on the table."

"We have a broad level of tools to deal with misconduct, overreach, and abuse of power. And the Supreme Court has not been receiving the adequate oversight necessary in order to preserve their own legitimacy," she continued. "And, in the process, they themselves have been destroying the legitimacy of the Court, which is profoundly dangerous for our entire democracy."

Newsweek reached out by phone to the U.S. Supreme Court media office for comment.