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Rep. Jamie Raskin praises birthright-citizenship ruling, urges Supreme Court ethics and structural reforms
Summary
Congressman Jamie Raskin told a Montgomery County media briefing that the Supreme Court's decision protecting birthright citizenship is a rare win but underscored wide concern about campaign-finance decisions, the shadow docket and the lack of a binding ethics code for the Court; he urged congressional reforms and a binding ethics code.
Congressman Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said Monday that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding birthright citizenship was a “rare win” but that the court’s broader record this term exposed deeper problems requiring congressional and institutional responses.
“This is the birthright citizenship case,” Raskin said, arguing the Court preserved the constitutional text that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States…shall be a citizen of the United States.” He called the ruling important for families in Montgomery County, where many children have at least one immigrant parent.
Raskin warned, however, that other recent decisions — including ones he described as weakening campaign-finance limits and allowing quick, unexplained reversals on the shadow docket — are troubling. “The Supreme Court has done some other stuff, which I find profoundly objectionable,” he said, and criticized summary reversals that, in his view, fail to explain the Court’s reasoning.
On remedies, Raskin said Congress should pursue measures to require greater transparency from the Court and to impose enforceable ethics rules. “We need a binding ethics code for the Supreme Court of the United States,” he said, adding that every state has a binding code and a process to address ethical complaints while the U.S. Supreme Court does not.
Raskin also framed several of the Court’s recent rulings as matters of local consequence, citing the county’s immigrant population and noting possible federal policy impacts for Temporary Protected Status holders and others who live and work in Montgomery County.
Raskin defended legislative options for checking executive overreach, defended ongoing efforts in Congress (including a discharge petition he introduced aimed at blocking a disputed DOJ fund proposal), and called for long-term structural ideas to rebalance the Court’s geographic representation and restore public confidence.
The congressman took multiple questions from reporters about executive orders, shadow-docket reforms and campaign-finance law. He framed many of his concerns as legislative and institutional problems to be addressed by Congress rather than by local governments.
What happens next: Raskin said he has introduced or supports legislation to require the Supreme Court to provide clearer reasoning for emergency orders and to establish a binding ethics regime; he urged residents to follow congressional action for reforms.
