WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A Democratic-led Senate panel intends to pursue legislation setting ethical standards for U.S. Supreme Court justices amid revelations about luxury trips and real estate transactions involving members of the nation’s top judicial body, the panel’s chairman said on Tuesday.
“The highest court in the land should not have the lowest ethical standards,” Senator Dick Durbin said at the start of a Judiciary Committee hearing on the issue. “That reality is driving a crisis in public confidence in the Supreme Court. The status quo must change.”
None of the nine justices appeared at the hearing, with Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday declining an invitation by Durbin for him to testify. Instead, the committee was hearing from lawyers and academics versed in the subject.
“Ethics cannot simply be left to the discretion of the nation’s highest court. The court should have a code of conduct with clear and enforceable rules so both justices and the American people know when conduct crosses the line,” Durbin said.
He added: “The Supreme Court should step up and fix this themselves. For years they refused. And because the court will not act, Congress must.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, the panel’s top Republican, in his opening statement criticized what he called a “concentrated effort by the left to delegitimize this court and to cherry-pick examples to make a point.”
“I, too, have expressed a desire for the court to be more transparent, to have rules that the public can relate to,” Graham said. “I have never suggested that the Congress should take over the court’s ability to regulate itself. I do not believe that is wise.”
Another Republican committee member, Senator John Kennedy said the hearing represented “an excuse to sling more mud at an institution that some – not all – some Democrats don’t like because they can’t control it 100% of the time.”
The news outlet ProPublica has detailed ties between conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s longest-tenured member, and wealthy Republican donor Harlan Crow, including real estate purchases and luxury travel paid for by the Dallas businessman.
Separately, the news outlet Politico has reported that conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch failed to disclose the buyer of a Colorado property in which he had a stake – the chief executive of a major law firm whose attorneys have been involved in numerous Supreme Court cases.
Supreme Court justices are not bound like other federal judges by a code of conduct adopted by the policymaking body for the broader federal judiciary. Other federal judges under that code must avoid even the “appearance of impropriety.”
Roberts has said Supreme Court justices consult that code in assessing their own ethical obligations.
Witnesses testifying included former federal judge Jeremy Fogel and judicial ethics expert Amanda Frost of the University of Virginia School of Law, who both contend that the justices need a code of conduct. Two other witnesses, former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and lawyer Thomas Dupree, argue that imposing such a code through legislation would infringe on the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers among the government’s executive, legislative and judicial branches.
Two U.S. senators, independent Angus King who caucuses with Democrats and Republican Lisa Murkowski, introduced legislation on April 26 that would require the Supreme Court to create a code of conduct and appoint an official to review ethics complaints. With Republican opposition expected, any such legislation faces an uphill battle in a divided Congress.
The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Liberals have decried some of its recent rulings including expanding gun rights and ending its recognition of a constitutional right to abortion.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and John Kruzel in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)
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