{"id":17260,"date":"2023-11-15T18:51:39","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T23:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/?p=17260"},"modified":"2023-11-15T18:51:39","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T23:51:39","slug":"lawmakers-doubt-justices-will-enforce-their-own-ethics-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/2023\/11\/15\/lawmakers-doubt-justices-will-enforce-their-own-ethics-code\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers doubt Justices will enforce their own ethics code"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers worry that enforcement of the U.S. Supreme Court’s new code of conduct will fall on congressional shoulders.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the halls of Congress Wednesday, legislators such as Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., questioned who would enforce the code and called it a \u201cbig problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSupreme Court members cannot remove themselves,\u201d Takano said. \u201cThe accountability comes back to Congress. When there\u2019s no remedy or enforcement, I don\u2019t get the teeth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly, Rep. Jim Banks, R- Ind., said he had not reviewed the ethics code yet but the potential \u201cpurely internal\u201d process concerned him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe all are checked-and-balanced by people outside of our organizations,\u201d Banks said. \u201cMy guess is there\u2019s more of a role for Congress than they\u2019ll take care of themselves.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Police
Capitol Hill Police Officer looks over to the U.S. Supreme Court House.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Monday, the Supreme Court published a 15-page code of conduct, the first-ever code in the court\u2019s 234 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Media outlets including <\/span>×îÐÂÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñington Post<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>ProPublica<\/span><\/a> recently reported Justice Clarence Thomas\u2019s personal relationship with billionaire real estate developer Harlan Crow, a conservative donor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200b\u200b<\/span>ProPublica<\/span><\/a> also revealed Justice Samuel Alito did not recuse himself from a case with a hedge fund billionaire who earlier gifted the justice a private jet trip to Alaska.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Justice Sonya Sotomayor also came under fire this year following accusations she leveraged public appearances to sell more autobiographies, according to the <\/span>AP<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new list of rules is in response to the perception that justices \u201cregard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules,\u201d according to a statement by the court.<\/span><\/p>\n

All nine justices signed the 15-page document codifying principles of conduct.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who rules the Court?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Rep. Jim Jordan, R- Ohio, said the code \u201cis fine\u201d because he preferred the legislative branch to not impose upon the judiciary.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the Supreme Court never previously published a code of ethics or decorum, Article One of the U.S. Constitution accounted for legislative oversight of the judiciary. A simple majority in the House would impeach a justice\u2013 a subsequent two-thirds Senate vote would then remove the judge from the high court.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1804, the House impeached Justice Samuel Chase though the Senate later acquitted him, according to the <\/span>Brennan Center for Justice<\/span><\/a>. He is the only impeached Supreme Court justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Washington College of Law Professor Stephen Wermiel said the new code is an effort to \u201ckeep Congress off [justices\u2019] backs.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The new code adapted the <\/span>Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges<\/span><\/a> to the specific demands of the Supreme Court, according to the high court\u2019s commentary section.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the standards outlined how justices \u201cshould avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety\u201d and they \u201cshould not be swayed by partisan interests, public clamor, or fear of criticism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Capitol\"
The U.S. Capitol.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Monday’s code of ethics lacked an implementation mechanism which leaves justices to regulate themselves, Wermiel said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily a great way to enforce an ethics code,\u201d Wermiel said. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to change the way they do things and that\u2019s frustrating to many people who had hoped that they would come up with an ethics code that had some more teeth and enforcement mechanism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Wermiel said the Supreme Court would not realistically allow another entity to discipline their ethics, though some members of Congress wanted some form of outside oversight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rep. Steve Cohen, D- Tenn., said the court needs to impose \u201csome type of sanctions,\u201d to enforce the rules. He said \u201cnobody\u201d currently holds the court accountable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey just take care of each other,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cThe Supreme Court\u2019s not going to enforce against their own.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The word \u201cshould\u201d appeared 52 times in the new conduct code, while binding verbs like \u201cmust\u201d and \u201cshall\u201d appear six and zero times.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D- N.Y., called the code \u201ca fig leaf for the court.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>I think of it as more of a [public relations] effort than anything that\u2019s actually a serious measure,\u201d <\/span>Ocasio-Cortez said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court just published its first-ever code of conduct after months of controversy. But \u2018enforcement is a big problem,\u2019 one representative said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":219,"featured_media":17265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,208],"tags":[],"coauthors":[593,622],"class_list":["post-17260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-capitol-hill","category-washington-d-c"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/219"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17260"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17278,"href":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17260\/revisions\/17278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17260"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewash.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=17260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}