As you’ve no doubt seen, the Supreme Court is facing a massive legitimacy crisis, not just because of their devastating rulings rolling back our fundamental rights, but for their highly questionable behavior off the bench as well. Recent reporting has indicated that Justice Clarence Thomas accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in lavish gifts from a billionaire MAGA donor, including private jet flights and luxury trips on yachts, as well as school tuition and rent payments for members of his family. Thomas wasn’t the only justice accepting perks – his colleague, Samuel Alito also reportedly accepted luxury vacations on a private jet from a billionaire hedge fund manager with business pending in front of the Court.
All of this has the effect of throwing the Court’s impartiality and fairness into question. How can we trust that their decisions were made fairly when they’re accepting gifts from the parties involved? The Supreme Court is supposed to be a fair arbiter of the law and the constitution, not a vending machine that grants favors to billionaires.
That’s why Congress must pass the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act (SCERT). This bill would impose ethical rules on all Supreme Court justices to ensure that the highest court in the land is not held to the lowest ethical standards. In particular, SCERT would:
- Create meaningful and enforceable ethics guidelines for the Supreme Court by establishing a binding code of conduct for all of the justices and clarifying and strengthening the justices’ duty to recuse themselves from cases in which they have conflicts of interest and requiring public disclosure of those conflicts.
- Mandate that, at a minimum, the justices adhere to the same gift, travel, and income disclosure standards as Members of Congress.
- Impose a duty on justices to know their own and their family’s financial and other interests that could be substantially affected by cases before them.
Check to see if your senator is a co-sponsor of SCERT. If they’re not a co-sponsor yet, call and tell them to support SCERT and urge them to do everything in their power to pass it through the Senate. While SCERT won’t solve all of the problems brewing at the Supreme Court, it’s a critical step in the right direction.