Here, for instance, is the ranking Republican on the committee, Lindsey Graham. Now, Republicans view these provisions as an attack on the conservative court by liberal Democrats. And it would require the justices to explain their recusal decisions to the public. It would require greater disclosure and transparency when a justice has a connection to a person or an entity or a group involved in a case. It would require the creation of a mechanism to investigate alleged violations of the code. TOTENBERG: Well, first, it would require the court to write an ethics code for itself based in part on the existing code for lower court judges. For instance, the duty to recuse is up to individual justices.ĬHANG: Right.
To be clear, while the court has for decades followed the financial disclosure provisions that apply to all federal judges, the justices are not bound by the other ethics provisions in federal law. And Republicans now see that as a threat to the conservative supermajority on the court. In fairness, I should point out that the Judiciary Committee chairman, Dick Durbin, has been trying for 11 years to get the Supreme Court to write an ethics code for itself. TOTENBERG: You would be entirely correct about that. And I take it the tone of the discussion today was not that friendly. So we know today's proceedings come while there's been a string of ethics revelations about various justices, including Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Joining me now to talk about all of it is NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg.
And while the idea of the Senate getting a bill through committee sounds fairly routine, the 3 1/2-hour markup that it involved was not. Today the Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to send to the Senate floor a bill that would require the Supreme Court to issue a code of ethics for itself.
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