Kaine hypes bill that would mandate Supreme Court code of conduct

New legislation in Congress that aims to require the Supreme Court to adopt a binding code of conduct sounds nice. I’d wonder about it being little more than an effort at looking like we’re doing something, but still.

“Our nation was founded on the principle that no one is above the law, including our Supreme Court justices, but recent actions of some justices have led the American people to lose faith in this ideal,” said U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, one of 26 co-sponsors in the Senate and House for the bill, which has been styled the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act. 

He’s not wrong there.

We know that Clarence Thomas has a long record of accepting undisclosed gifts from right-wing billionaires with cases in the federal system. And that Samuel Alito accepted private jet travel to an all-expenses-paid vacation from a hedge-fund billionaire who had contributed more than $80 million to Republican political organizations and had business before the Court.

Alito’s luxury vacation was organized by Leonard Leo, the engineer of the current right-wing Supreme Court supermajority, who now appears to be on the outs with Donald Trump, because Leo’s lower-court judges haven’t shown sufficient deference to The Mad King.

The SCERT Act would require Supreme Court justices to adopt a binding code of conduct and create a mechanism to investigate alleged violations of the code of conduct and other laws. The language in the bill aims to improve disclosure and transparency when a justice has a connection to a party before the Court, end the practice of justices ruling on their own conflicts of interest, and require justices to explain their recusal decisions to the public.

“We must rebuild public trust in our nation’s highest court, which is why I’m proud to be reintroducing this commonsense legislation to create a tough, enforceable, and mandatory ethics standard to ensure the justices are acting in the best interest of the American people and properly carrying out their duties under the Constitution,” Kaine said.