Asked if he would subpoena the chief justice of the US supreme court for testimony over corruption allegations against the conservative justice Clarence Thomas, the chair of the Senate judiciary committee made clear his frustration with a continued absence from the panel that has left Democrats unable to make such a move.
“It takes a majority,” Dick Durbin of Illinois said on Thursday. “I don’t have a majority.”
Democrats do not have a committee majority because of the absence of Dianne Feinstein, the 89-year-old California senator who has been hospitalised with shingles.
Some Democrats have called for Feinstein to resign, while others have labelled such calls as sexist. Feinstein has said she hopes to return.
But Republicans blocked a move for a temporary committee replacement and the situation has slowed Democrats’ pace in confirming federal judges, a priority after four years in which Donald Trump sent conservatives to courts around the US.
Thomas is the senior conservative on a supreme court tilted 6-3 to the right after three confirmations under Trump. This month, he has been the subject of bombshell reporting from ProPublica, about his long relationship with and acceptance of gifts from Harlan Crow, a rightwing megadonor and collector of Hitler memorabilia.
Crow’s links to Thomas’s wife, the rightwing activist Ginni Thomas, have also come under the spotlight.
Thomas and Crow deny wrongdoing, the justice saying he was advised he did not have to declare gifts, the donor saying he and Thomas did not discuss politics or business before the court.
On Thursday, the Guardian detailed business a conservative group affiliated with Crow has had before the court in the period of his friendship with Thomas.
Observers have said Thomas broke the law. But though supreme court justices are subject to federal ethics rules, they essentially govern themselves.
On Thursday, Durbin said he had invited the chief justice to testify about the Thomas allegations on 2 May. The senator also said Roberts could send another justice in his place, pointing to testimony by justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer in 2011.
Speaking to reporters, Durbin said: “There’s been no discussion of subpoenas for anyone at this point.”
Republicans opposed the request.
John Cornyn of Texas said: “I would not recommend that the chief accept his invitation because it would be a circus.”
Josh Hawley of Missouri said Durbin was trying to “turn the screws” on Roberts and claimed the situation was “inching toward” a constitutional crisis.
But there is pressure on Democrats to act over what Chris Van Hollen of Maryland has called the “unacceptable” way in which “the supreme court has exempted itself from the accountability that applies to all other members of our federal courts”.
Writing to Roberts, Durbin described “a steady stream of revelation regarding justices falling short of the ethical standards expected of other federal judges and, indeed, of public servants generally”.
Earlier this week, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut suggested Thomas and Crow should be the ones to receive subpoenas.
