Supreme Court Above the Law?
By: Bob Edgar
July 7, 2011 
6 Comments
If reporters found evidence that President Obama had slipped out of the White House for a weekend trip with a wealthy, politically active businessman and then failed to report it or reported it inaccurately on his annual financial disclosure forms, the howls of his political opponents – and Washington’s press corps – would be heard coast-to-coast.
If House Speaker John Boehner was hitting up a rich friend for six- and seven-figure donations to a charity in Boehner’s Cincinnati neighborhood, at the same time that friend had business before the House, Boehner’s political opponents would be banging on the doors of the Ethics Committee to demand an investigation.
That’s the way our system is supposed to operate. The political parties keep an eye on one another and journalists watch them both. The Congress blows a whistle when the executive oversteps his authority; the President speaks up when the legislative branch runs amok.
It’s messy, but it works.
Except at the Supreme Court.
Without anyone paying much attention, our nation’s highest court has moved beyond the kind of scrutiny Americans give the rest of our government. The Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges, a written set of ethical rules for the rest of the federal judiciary, pointedly omits the highest court; unless he or she engages in egregious, public misconduct, each justice is answerable only to himself or herself.
That’s just wrong.
Since late last year, when Common Cause learned that Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas may have been “featured” at secretive political strategy and fundraising seminars hosted by a multi-billion dollar corporation, Koch Industries, we’ve waged a campaign to hold the highest court to the highest standards.
The court has not exactly welcomed the attention.
Justices Scalia and Thomas have ignored requests for information about their association with the Koch events. Justice Thomas has not responded to questions about his role in raising money for a museum in his hometown and his apparent but unreported or incompletely reported travels aboard a developer’s private jet. And Chief Justice John Roberts has ignored queries about how the Court views and/or enforces the judicial Code of Conduct.
Congress and the executive branch have shown little interest in policing the court. The Justice Department never answered a suggestion that it investigate whether Scalia and Thomas should have disqualified themselves from participation in Citizens United, a major campaign finance case decided in a way that benefitted the Kochs. And on Capitol Hill, a bill to bring the Court under the judicial Code of Conduct has yet to receive even a committee hearing.
Regardless, Common Cause today broadened its campaign on two fronts. First, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request (PDF) with the US Marshals Service, which typically provides protection to the justices when they leave Washington. We’re trying to determine whether Justice Thomas traveled on a plane owned by developer and political activist Harlan Crow on seven occasions over the past four years, and if so, whether those trips were properly disclosed. The New York Times raised questions about three of the trips, while a Common Cause review of flight records found four additional trips made by Crow’s jet that followed a similar pattern of travel from Dallas to Washington and on to Savannah, Ga., Thomas’ hometown. Federal law requires all federal officials to disclose who pays for their travel.
We’ve also appealed for help from the nation’s largest lawyers, a group with a direct interest in maintaining high ethical standards throughout the legal profession. We’ve sent a letter to the president of the American Bar Association, urging him to press Roberts and Thomas for answers to questions about the latter justice’s travels on Crow’s jet and to call on the Court to bring itself voluntarily under the Code of Conduct.
These are achievable steps to bring to the court the same kind of accountability Americans expect of our other governmental institutions. They are unrelated to any pending case or past decision and no threat to judicial independence. They simply seek to ensure that those who enforce legal standards for the rest of us also observe those standards themselves.
That the most powerful court of America has no set standard of ethics that they are legally bound to violates the very foundational concepts of justice in our judiciary.
The Supreme Court has a sacred trust to uphold justice. It is inconceivable that the Justices themselves are not held accountable for their actions.
At this point, Common Cause has appealed to the Department of Justice, Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court itself, Chief Justice John Roberts, the American Bar Association, and the U.S. Marshals Service.
How can it be that absolutely none of these government agencies/employees feel compelled to respond to very serious questions?
It is enraging.
House Bill 862 on Supreme Court Ethics was just introduced to have law for the SCOTUS to have it’s own Code of Ethics, which it currently does not.
Kevin Zeece, Esq., has filed a complaint to the Missouri Supreme Court on Clarence Thomas to have his law license revoked. He works in DC for the Protect Our Elections group but you can read his complaint to the Missouri Bar at http://www.scribd.com/doc/49830727/Clarence-Thomas-Bar-Complaint
If he looses his license to practice law, shouldn’t he step down or be impeached? If he had any integrity, dignity, and respect for the institution of the Court and the Constitution, he would, but he is so arrogant, he would drag it out. Since Lord Acton’s dictum of absolute power corrupting absolutely is exemplified here. He is just so stupid and punch drunk with power. How many years has it been since he has even asked a question from the bench? Luckily, he has clerks to research and write his opinions as long as Justices Scalia and Roberts concur with what he writes.
@ peeautbuttnr:I wasn’t sure the timing of the *packing* v. the *stand against corps*. Which leads me to two other things that have bothered me for a while. 1. The timing of O’Connor’s retirement – which I thought odd since she was supposedly a more moderate to liberal justice. Wouldn’t she have known that she would likely be replaced by an activist conservative judge? And wouldn’t that have bothered her given the state of the country?2. David Souter retired for some reason. BEFORE he heard these additional arguments. And he wrote a dissent that hits on exactly what this case means. Why did he retire BEFORE the case was finished?
That’s not the issue. The issue is wtehher the California Constitution withdraws the power from the legislature to decide. It doesn’t.