By
Last October, amid a series of ethics controversies plaguing the high court, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett conceded that it’d be a “good idea” for the institution to adopt an ethics code. Justice Elena Kagan made similar comments a month earlier.
The good news for reformers was that the Supreme Court announced in November that it was formally adopting a new code of conduct, which included provisions related to when justices should recuse themselves and what kind of outside activities they can engage in. The bad news was that the rules didn’t amount to much.
There was no enforcement mechanism, the justices adopted a model in which they were responsible for policing themselves and the rules fell short of the ethical standards other federal judges are expected to meet. In fact, the new code really just repackaged the justices’ earlier statements on ethics and presented them in a new document.
Unsatisfied with the fig leaf, Senate Democrats moved forward with legislation called the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act (SCERT Act), which is relatively modest in scope. As NBC News reported, the bill “would give the court 180 days to adopt and publish a code of conduct, allowing the public to submit ethics complaints that would then be reviewed by a randomly selected panel of lower-court judges. It would also establish new rules for disclosing gifts and travel.”
Senate Republicans balked at such reforms last year, and that opposition has not changed. NBC News reported:
Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a Democratic-sponsored bill that would require Supreme Court justices to adopt a binding code of conduct. ... [Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin] took to the Senate floor Wednesday and sought to pass the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act by “unanimous consent,” which immediately faced Republican opposition.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham vowed in advance to derail the measure, and he did exactly that. Though it only took one opponent to object to the unanimous-consent request, the South Carolinian was joined by some of his GOP colleagues, including Sens. John Kennedy of Louisiana and Mike Lee of Utah.
The effort came just days after an audio recording intensified ethics questions surrounding Justice Samuel Alito, and less than a week after Justice Clarence Thomas disclosed luxury travel he’d accepted from Republican megadonor.
Nevertheless, no one was surprised by the developments on the Senate floor. Indeed, everyone involved in the process has long realized that the legislative prospects for Supreme Court reforms effectively do not exist: To advance a bill through the Senate the usual way would require 60 votes — a fanciful idea in a chamber in which members of the GOP’s “moderate” wing are an endangered species — and even if those votes were to somehow materialize, the Republican-led House would ignore the bill.
But Senate Democrats apparently feel compelled to try to keep the issue alive, while simultaneously helping prove to the public just how little GOP lawmakers care about improving the integrity of the high court.