American confidence in the Supreme Court has plunged to historic lows. It’s not so much because of their rulings, but the behavior of individual justices, and their method of selection.
Without serious judicial reform, such mistrust of our highest court is going to trickle down to lower levels of the judiciary, with consequences too dire to ignore.
Earlier last month Jeffrey M. Jones with Gallup Polling concluded that America’s views of the Supreme Court reached a record low. It now stands at 40%, according to Mr. Jones… well below the 60%+ of Americans who said they approved of the way the Supreme Court did its job back in 2000.
Some attributed the low numbers to a series of conservative rulings on abortion, student loan debt forgiveness, and knocking down race as a factor in collegiate admissions. But the Supreme Court also invalidated Alabama’s congressional map as violating the Voting Rights Act and turned away a challenge by state legislatures to invalidate district-drawing rulings this term. Something else is different now.
What made the public really uncomfortable were the revelations that a Supreme Court Justice allegedly accepted free plane flights and may have received numerous undisclosed gifts, from a donor who may well have had a vested interest in the outcome, according to Fortune Magazine.
As the story grew, it turned out that this justice may not have been the only one receiving all kinds of gifts, and failing to disclose them, according to the Brookings Institution. One fears that these revelations may just be the tip of the iceberg.
Yet the Supreme Court currently is exempted from any sort of rules that might have prevented such a catastrophe. “The nine justices of the Supreme Court are the only federal judges not bound by the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges, which goes beyond the basic ethics laws enacted after Watergate and creates uniformity around thorny issues like recusals and participation in political activities,” writes an interest group called “Fix the Court.”
One would think that an embarrassed Supreme Court would do the right thing, and adopt at least a voluntary code of conduct to fix this glaring oversight when it comes to the disclosure of gifts, and the need to recuse oneself if there is a conflict of interest. After all, why should the Supreme Court be exempted from rules that would land lower court judges in a lot of hot water? But several court members and allies of theirs have spoken out against even the hint of reform.
Congress has now prepared to do the job that the highest court seems reluctant to even discuss. But reformers were opposed by the court’s defenders, who claim such actions would violate the separation of powers and checks and balances. They’re wrong.
Notes the Brennan Center:
As the history of congressional regulation of Supreme Court ethics makes clear, it is squarely within Congress’s constitutional power to ensure the integrity of a coequal branch by holding Supreme Court justices to high ethical standards. Since the founding, Congress has played a central role in regulating the ethical conduct of the justices, first by requiring them to take an oath written by Congress. Congress also sets the terms by which federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, retire and how they are compensated.
Congress even passed laws about recusals and receiving gifts, but left it up to the courts to enforce this and come up with sanctions, which now seems like a mistake.
If you agree that highest courts should face the same ethical standards as lowest courts, contact your member of Congress and let them know where you stand on the Senate Bill 359, The Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act of 2023.
It’s one way — maybe the best way — to restore public confidence in our judicial system.
John A. Tures is Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of the Political Science Program at LaGrange College, in LaGrange, Georgia.