The Supreme Court still has an ethics problem, team.
It’s been a year since ProPublica released its scathing report revealing the long list of undisclosed gifts and accommodations Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas got from one very political billionaire Republican mega-donor. A subsequent ProPublica story unearthed that Justice Sam Alito had also received an undisclosed lavish vacation on the dime of a superrich GOP donor.
Yet here we are, one year later, and the Court still hasn’t offered a response that adequately addresses its glaring ethics problem.
Sure, the justices announced a nominal code of ethics for themselves last fall, but it lacks any method of fact-finding or enforcement. There’s not even a path to file a formal complaint against a justice. And there is zero transparency around potential issues and resolutions.
Any real code of ethics has an enforcement mechanism. Every other federal judge adheres to a code of conduct that includes a process for determining whether ethics violations were committed. But the most powerful members of the federal judiciary are still the least accountable.
The Supreme Court should not be exempt from accountability. We have to continue to push for my Supreme Court ethics bill – which would solve the problem of fact-finding and enforcement.
You deserve accountability and transparency from our country’s highest court. I hope you’ll consider chipping in to my re-election campaign so I can continue my work to ensure questions about misconduct at the Supreme Court don't go unanswered.
We've come a long way toward making the case for more accountability at the Supreme Court over the past year, but there's a lot more to do.
Thank you,
Sheldon Whitehouse
