ethics | Judiciary.org

Supreme Court

Supreme Court ethics bill advances out of House committee after party-line vote

Recent controversies aside, efforts to pass Supreme Court reform legislation have been in the works for years. Now ethics reform is drawing national attention as polls show that public confidence in the court is plummeting. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., announced sweeping ethics legislationon Tuesday that would impose a code of conduct on the justices and would ban them from owning securities. And on Wednesday night, the House Judiciary Committee voted 22-16 along party lines … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Republicans call ethics hearing a double-standard; Democrats call for a standard

On the same day that Congress approved legislation to improve the justices’ financial disclosure transparency, a House panel was caught up in a political scuffle over legislative proposals for broader Supreme Court reform, including a binding code of ethics.

At the hearing on Wednesday, Democrats on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet raised concerns over apparent ethical lapses by the justices and the court’s legitimacy. Chair Hank Johnson, D-Ga., opened by pointing to the … Read the rest