WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John Roberts may have rejected a request to testify, but a Senate panel on Tuesday will move ahead with a hearing on the increasing demands for Supreme Court ethics reform.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, controlled by Democrats, is scheduled to hear from a series of outside witnesses on the issue, which has made headlines following stories about ethical standards on the court. Most notably, ProPublica reported last month that Justice Clarence Thomas had not disclosed expensive trips paid for by his friend, conservative billionaire Harlan Crow.
A key question raised by ethics experts and Democratic lawmakers is why the Supreme Court has not adopted an ethics code of conduct similar to the one lower federal court judges follow.
Among other things, that code requires judges to “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities.” If judges breach the code, they can be investigated and reprimanded through a separate complaint process.
The justices say they follow the spirit of that code, introduced in 1973, but they have never formally adopted one of their own. There is also no procedure that allows for complaints to be investigated short of the drastic step of impeachment.
Members of Congress have introduced legislation requiring the justices to adopt a code. The pressure has come predominantly from Democrats, although Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has backed one of the bills.
Republicans mostly say Democrats are motivated by sour grapes because the court now has a 6-3 conservative majority that has dramatically shifted its rulings to the right, most notably with last year’s reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that said women had a constitutional right to obtain abortions.
When Roberts declined to attend Tuesday’s hearing, suggesting it would threaten the independence of the judiciary, he attached a statement signed by all nine justices stressing their commitment to ethics principles. The statement was heavily criticized by ethics experts who said it did little to address recent concerns.
Senate Democrats asked Roberts various questions in response, leading Roberts to send a letter Monday in which he confirmed that the court has “no set rules” on adopting ethics proposals.
Roberts said he was “not aware” of any situations in which a justice had been subject to any penalties for failing to make relevant disclosures on the annual forms judges are required to file.
Witnesses at Tuesday’s hearing include two former judges: Democratic-appointee Jeremy Fogel, who was a district court judge in California, and Republican-appointee Michael Mukasey, who was a district court judge in New York before serving as attorney general under former President George W. Bush.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
