Senate Judiciary Committee Advances Supreme Court Ethics Reform

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-10 on Thursday to advance a Supreme Court ethics reform proposal without any support from Republicans.

Senate Democrats blocked all but one GOP amendment from being tacked onto the bill, which is unlikely to clear the chamber’s 60-vote threshold and is dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled House. 

The exception, from Sens. John Kennedy, R-La., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., condemned racial attacks against all current and former Supreme Court justices, including — by name — Clarence Thomas.

ProPublica has reported that Justice Samuel Alito accepted luxury travel on a private jet with hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, who has asked the court repeatedly to rule in his favor. The publication has also reported on decades of undisclosed luxury travel Justice Clarence Thomas has taken from GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, who has paid Thomas in a real estate deal and paid private school tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew.

The Associated Press reported this month that Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s staff “has often prodded public institutions that have hosted the justice to buy her memoir or children’s books,” for which she’s earned more than $3 million since joining the Supreme Court in 2009.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., introduced the underlying bill in February. His proposal would require the high court to adopt a code of conduct for justices and institute procedures to accept and investigate complaints of judicial misconduct. It would also require the court to enact rules for disclosures of gifts, travel and income from justices and law clerks that are at least as rigorous as congressional disclosure rules, in addition to creating procedural rules requiring each party or impartial adviser to report any gifts, income or reimbursements given to justices. 

Republicans have framed the legislation as an effort to delegitimize and destroy the Supreme Court because Democrats disagree with high-profile conservative rulings.

“You’re trying very hard and you’re going to fail miserably,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the top Republican on the panel, told committee Democrats. “This bill is going nowhere. All of us are going to vote no.”

Senate Republicans argued that the bill would shrink the court by “disqualifying” justices who face partisan complaints and called Democrats’ ethics reform push “political smoke and mirrors.” Democrats stressed that the reforms would apply equally to all justices.

Republicans also highlighted the need to maintain a separation of powers from the legislative branch, though Democrats countered that Congress has played policymaking roles related to the Supreme Court in the past.

“If the Supreme Court decided that they didn’t like the ethics code or the way the Senate Ethics Committee administered that ethics code, I dare say if the Supreme Court sent a letter over criticizing it or suggesting changes, I don’t think any of us would take that seriously, conversely,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. “The Supreme Court and the judiciary is a co-equal branch of government.” 

In contrast, Durbin, who chairs the committee, framed the bill as a “crucial first step in restoring confidence in the court, after a steady stream of reports of justices’ ethical failures” when “public support for the Supreme Court is at an all-time low.”