The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Dec. 8 to investigate the religious right lobbying campaign that led to the allegation that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito leaked the outcome of his 2014 Hobby Lobby decision to its participants.

Rev. Rob Schenck, the former conservative evangelical leader who alleged that he learned the outcome of the Hobby Lobby decision from supporters who had dined with Alito, will testify, the committee announced on Dec. 5.

The committees announced hearing follows a back-and-forth between the two top committee Democrats overseeing the courts, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), and the court over the lobbying campaign and the courts lack of a binding ethics code. The two lawmakers concluded that the court refused to answer their questions and threatened to provide the oversight that the court was not doing for itself.

If the Court ... is not willing to undertake fact-finding inquiries into possible ethics violations, that leaves Congress as the only forum, they wrote.

This provoked a coalition of more than 60 progressive groups, including Demand Justice, Planned Parenthood , NARAL Pro-Choice and more, to send a letter urging Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Whitehouse to hold hearings on the lobbying campaign and call its leader, Schenck, to testify.

This scandal is just the latest in a long line of ethical failures the Court itself refuses to deal with, Brian Fallon, president of Demand Justice, a progressive judiciary group, said. House Judiciary is right to move quickly to investigate, and Senate Democrats should plan to take up the mantle in the new year.

Since Democrats lost control of the House in the November midterm elections, they only command the House Judiciary Committee gavel through the end of the year, when they will turn it over to Republicans . Democrats, however, will remain in control of the Senate Judiciary Committee after holding the chamber.

The Senate committee has yet to announce any hearings of its own. But its leaders have indicated that they will pursue oversight of the court.