Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin vowed to press ahead with legislation to impose an ethics code for the US Supreme Court despite the justices’ rebuff of formal conduct standards.
(Bloomberg) — Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin vowed to press ahead with legislation to impose an ethics code for the US Supreme Court despite the justices’ rebuff of formal conduct standards.
Durbin also held out hope in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday that the effort would attract Republicans, citing a law Congress approved last year with GOP backing requiring all federal judges, including Supreme Court Justices to disclose stock holdings related to cases they hear.
Durbin mounted a campaign for a high court ethics code following revelations Justice Clarence Thomas took but never disclosed luxury trips paid for by a Texas GOP donor.
The No. 2 ranking Senate Democrat rejected as unacceptable a statement Chief Justice John Roberts sent him last week, signed by all nine Supreme Court justices, pledging to follow “foundational ethics principles and practices” but suggesting no need for a code.
“I don’t think they’re adequate and Clarence Thomas is proof positive of that,” Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said. “But he rationalized that what they have is good enough. I don’t think it is.”
Republicans, who control the House and whose support is needed in the Senate to clear legislation, so far haven’t indicated interest in an ethics code. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell last week defended the “high ethical standards” already observed by the justices and said Republican-appointed justices like Thomas are subjected to “never-ending attempts to smear and defame” them.
ProPublica reported that Thomas failed to disclose luxury trips over two decades that were paid for by Harlan Crow, a Texas real estate developer who has donated millions to conservative causes. The nonprofit investigative news organization also reported that Crow bought three Georgia properties, including the home where Thomas’s mother resides, from the justice and relatives.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that despite Thomas’s statement that Crow “did not have business before the court,” there was a 2005 appeal that was rejected by the court involving one of the Crow family businesses.
Politico also reported that Justice Neil Gorsuch, just days after his confirmation, sold a Colorado property he owned with two other individuals to the chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, one of the nation’s biggest law firms, which had business before the high court. Gorsuch reported the purchase but not the purchaser in his 2017 financial disclosure form. The justice, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.
The Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on Supreme Court ethics. Roberts declined a request to testify. Durbin said it will feature a retired federal judge and other experts on court ethics and the constitutionality of regulating the high court.
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