On Tuesday evening, when hardly anyone was watching, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, took to the floor of the Senate to rail once again against the influence of dark money on the federal judiciary, and its influence specifically on the new, carefully engineered 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Now the court’s 6-3 big-donor chosen supermajority is delivering massive wins for those donor interests. And the American people can smell what Justice Sotomayor aptly characterized as the stench of a captured court.

But Whitehouse’s way into his argument was a new one. In his remarks, he targeted the laughably toothless commission the administration put together, purportedly to study the problems with the federal judiciary. These problems, of course, have been caused in great measure by the deluge of dark money into the confirmation process, most of it coming from economic and ideological sources that have extensive business before the court. However, the […]