Sheldon Whitehouse On Impeachment, Court-Packing and "Getting to 67 Votes"
Shortly before the Supreme Court's new term began this month—one that promises to be a blockbuster—Senator Sheldon Whitehouse thrust himself into the spotlight. A member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he confronted the High Court with a shockingly blunt friend-of-the-Court brief. It concluded: "The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it. Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be 'restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.'"
A chorus of critics immediately denounced his submission as a brazen threat to pack the Court, with a National Review columnist calling it "the most malicious brief" he'd ever seen, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board dubbing it "an enemy-of-the-Court" brief.
In a candid, free-wheeling interview with Newsweek last on October 15, Whitehouse defended his provocative filing, expounded still further on Supreme Court partisanship and warned of the "nightmare" influence that secret donors might be having on judicial selections and decision-making.
In addition, he addressed the issue that is crowding out all others on the public agenda: impeachment. To Newsweek he described Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as a "wily cat" who "treads carefully through uncertainty," and opined that there might already be "enough horror and resentment in the Republican Senate caucus to get us to 67 [votes] for conviction on the impeachment articles, given a secret ballot."
Whitehouse, 64, has been a senator since 2007, and is now in his third term. Previously, he served as Rhode Island's U.S. Attorney (1994-1998) and state attorney general (1999-2003). He earned his B.A. from Yale and law degree from the University of Virginia. He is married to marine biologist and environmental activist Sandra Thornton Whitehouse, and they have two children.
Edited excerpts:
Newsweek: Let's start with the impeachment proceedings. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has basically said there won't be removal on his watch.
Whitehouse: So there was a fundraising video in which he said that. I haven't seen him say that outside of the fundraising effort. I'm not sure that Mitch writes his own fundraising pitches.
So you're still hopeful that...
We'll see.
In the legislative arena he seems to
