The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on a new ethics code for the Supreme Court, an attempt to respond to recent revelations about justices’ interactions with wealthy donors and others.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote Thursday on a new ethics code for the Supreme Court, an attempt to respond to recent revelations about justices’ interactions with wealthy donors and others. Republicans are strongly opposed, arguing the ethics bill could “destroy” the high court.

  • @Fredselfish@lemmy.world
    96•11 months ago

    So according to Republicans if the Supreme Court had ethics it would destroy them?

    Then they need to be fucking destroyed.

  • @dhork@lemmy.world
    48•11 months ago

    South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel, said that if the bill were to ever pass, “the Supreme Court as we know it would be destroyed.”

    Wasn’t he the same guy who said that if the GOP nominated Trump, it would destroy the party? He seems to have a fetish for destruction.

    • Jaysyn
      17•11 months ago

      I don’t want the Supreme Court to continue existing in it’s current form, do you?

      He’s not wrong, he’s just an asshole. 🤣🤣

      • @dhork@lemmy.world
        15•11 months ago

        The Supreme Court needs to be reformed, but simply asking them to conform to the same Ethics guidelines other judges do is hardly destroying it.

  • @MicroWave@lemmy.worldOP
    42•11 months ago

    The committee’s legislation would impose new ethics rules on the court and a process to enforce them, including new standards for transparency around recusals, gifts and potential conflicts of interest. Democrats first pushed the legislation after reports earlier this year that Justice Clarence Thomas participated in luxury vacations and a real estate deal with a top GOP donor — and after Chief Justice John Roberts declined to testify before the committee about the ethics of the court.

    • @Moyer1666@lemmy.ml
      6•11 months ago

      The fact that testifying to Congress about their ethics issues is optional is crazy to me. He should have been required and there should be consequences for not doing it.

  • Arotrios
    27•11 months ago

    A good first step, but we need more than a code update when they’re ignoring the code as it currently exists. We need an independent non-partisan office that can and will enforce it, and ideally has the capacity to bring criminal charges to justices in violation.

    • Jaysyn
      8•11 months ago

      " ignoring the code as it currently exists."

      I thought the issue was they aren’t covered under those laws.

      • Arotrios
        12•11 months ago

        Yep, exactly. There’s an ethics code that Roberts recently published that was a rehash of the non-binding ethics standards that both Thomas and Alioto regularly ignored. This is an update to that code with more oversight in the form of additional required disclosures, but (correct me if I’m wrong - please, I want to be wrong here) I’m not seeing anything about enforcement, or anything about the consequences to a justice for violating these new requirements.

    • @DrPop
      3•11 months ago

      Any non partisan approach will be treated as partisan by the right. I don’t want violence to be the solution to the US issues but it gets harder every day to see any other effective solution.

    • SilverShrimp0
      3•11 months ago

      The legislative branch determines court jurisdiction. They could say that the DC Circuit will be the court of final appeal for any rules involving the supreme court

  • @Chickenstalker@lemmy.world
    4•11 months ago

    Systems created under the best-case-scenario will inevitably fail. The US legislative and executive branches were created under the assumption that all players have the best interest of the people and nation in mind and will act accordingly.

  • Telorand
    4•11 months ago

    Now, watch in amazement as the DNC fails to capitalize on the GOP’s desire to have a SCOTUS with no enforceable ethical standards.