Some question if split ticket voting will tip the scales in some key Senate contests where polling shows large gaps in presidential preference.
Two top Senate Democrats sent a letter on May 24 to Chief Justice John Roberts urging him to pressure Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, security breach at the U.S. Capitol.
Justice Alito, a conservative, has long been targeted by Democrats, but criticism of his performance on the bench has escalated since he wrote the 2022 majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the regulation of abortion to the states.
Democrat complaints about Justice Alito have grown since it was recently reported that an American flag flew upside-down outside his residence and an American Revolution-era “Appeal to Heaven” flag was displayed at his beach house. The upside-down American flag and the Appeal to Heaven flag were borrowed by supporters of President Donald Trump after Jan. 6 as part of the “Stop the Steal” movement to protest irregularities they claim plagued the 2020 election, as well as the decision by Congress to certify the election of President Joe Biden.
President Trump, a Republican, and President Biden, a Democrat, are set to square off again in the upcoming Nov. 5 election.
Democrats claim the flag incidents are proof that Justice Alito, 74, who was appointed in 2006 by Republican President George W. Bush, cannot be trusted to be impartial in his rulings.
The new letter from Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and his subcommittee chairman Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) came after they accused Justice Alito of pro-Trump bias related to the presence of the flags.
In the letter, they urged Chief Justice Roberts “to immediately take appropriate steps to ensure that Justice Alito will recuse himself” in two cases the Supreme Court is currently deliberating that affect President Trump.
In the U.S. House of Representatives, 45 Democrats also recently sent a letter to Justice Alito asking him to recuse himself “from any further participation in the cases of Trump v. United States, Fischer v. United States, and any other cases that may arise from the events surrounding January 6 or the 2020 election.”
By Emel Akan
