Dear John,

Appearing on Fox News to promote his new book (subtitled The Human Toll of Too Much Law), Trump-allied Justice Neil Gorsuch had just two words for Congress regarding President Biden’s proposed Supreme Court reforms: “Be careful.”

Since when does a Supreme Court justice threaten the executive or legislative branches simply for doing their jobs? There is no better evidence that we have of a Court enamored of its own political muscle and wrapped up in its own self-importance.

Congress must not be deterred.

In the light of recent scandals involving justices’ failures to recuse, their acceptance of lavish gifts, and the formerly GOP-led Senate’s excessive partisanship in even considering justice nominations, the Supreme Court has reached a crisis of legitimacy.

The Court no longer represents the values of the American public. According to a recent Associated Press-NORC poll, only 16% of Americans report a “great deal of confidence” in the Supreme Court, compared to 40% who express no confidence at all.

To address this multi-pronged crisis, President Biden is calling for two Supreme Court reforms that Congress should pass in a single package:

• A binding, enforceable Code of Ethics for the Supreme Court, which would address disclosure of gifts, refraining from public political activity, and recusal from cases in which a justice or their spouse has a financial or other conflict of interest; and

• Term limits for Supreme Court justices; specifically, a system in which the President would appoint a Justice every two years to serve eighteen years in active service on the Court, followed by lifetime status as Senior Justice, able to fill in temporary vacancies or to serve in lower appellate courts as needed.

Send a direct message to your two Senators and House Representative: Support and pass President Biden’s Supreme Court reforms now!

Of all the scandals rocking the Supreme Court today, none is more important than the failures of Justices Thomas and Alito to recuse themselves from the presidential immunity case in which, despite clear indications of their support for the January 6 insurrection, they ruled in favor of a president’s “absolute immunity” for “official” actions.

Justice Alito’s MAGA sympathies were on clear display when he “allowed” his wife to fly two insurrectionist flags outside their homes: an upside-down American flag and the White Christian Nationalist “Appeal to Heaven” flag, both of which were flown by rioters on January 6.

The impartiality of Justice Thomas, too, is called into serious doubt by his wife Ginni’s actions, as she pressed Arizona and Wisconsin lawmakers to appoint slates of fake electors after Trump lost those states in 2020, and she urged Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to “help this Great President stand firm” on January 6 as the mob violently assaulted Capitol Police.

Meanwhile, we keep hearing about new scandals involving Justice Thomas and his proclivity to accept lavish, unreported gifts from billionaires seeking favors from the Court, including a brand new revelation just this week of another undisclosed trip with Billionaire Harlen Crow.

Other justices, too, have accepted gifts. Whether it’s opera tickets for John Roberts, cowboy boots for Neil Gorsuch, or rifles for Antonin Scalia, gifts buy influence, and they must be limited.

A Code of Ethics especially must establish a means of enforcement. Justice Elana Kagan favors appointing a panel of independent judges to review alleged ethics code violations. Another approach, as suggested by Boston University professor Jed Shugerman, is to make ethics violations illegal, declaring that “granting access for something of value is a crime.”

President Biden is signaling a sea change in judicial accountability, but his proposed Supreme Court reforms do not require constitutional amendments. They are achievable by legislative action. No other major democracy provides life-long terms for its high court justices, and every other judge in the United States is subject to a binding code of ethics.

Biden has never supported these kinds of critical reforms to the Supreme Court before. We need to take advantage of the new momentum he’s created by making this a mission of the rest of his term. Send a message urging your members of Congress to support and pass President Biden’s Supreme Court reforms now.

Thank you for helping to re-establish the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action