Public trust in the Supreme Court has collapsed to historic lows — and it isn’t hard to see why.

A truly radical draft opinion is poised to overturn decades of settled law on abortion rights. Justice Clarence Thomas failed to recuse himself from a case on the attempted coup that his wife participated in. Justices accept lavish international trips and fail to file basic financial disclosure reports.

And it’s not just the top of the judicial branch: ethics scandals have plagued our federal courts for decades. Clerks have accused federal judges of sexual misconduct with little to no recourse. Judges and justices alike sit in cases in which they own individual stock in the parties — and in cases that could directly affect their spouses.

The judicial branch needs real ethics reform, from top to bottom. I’ve got a plan for that: Last week, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and I introduced the Judicial Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act.

From banning federal judges from owning individual stocks to overhauling the broken judicial recusal process, my bill would help root out corruption and restore public trust in the federal judiciary. But first, we have to fight side by side — as a grassroots movement — to get this bill through Congress.

Add your name as a grassroots co-sponsor of our Judicial Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act. [[link removed]]

Corruption is toxic to our democracy. But just this week, the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority opened the floodgates for more corruption across the rest of the federal branches: They ruled that campaigns can blow past limits on raking in donations after elections specifically to pay off the candidate’s personal loans to the campaign.

Justice Elena Kagan ripped the majority a new one in her dissent: “Political contributions that will line a candidate’s own pockets, given after his election to office, pose a special danger of corruption…In striking down the law today, the Court greenlights all the sordid bargains Congress thought right to stop.”

We need to fight back against those types of “sordid bargains” — including in the federal judiciary.

Here are a few big pieces of how our bill would give Americans confidence that their judges are held to the highest ethical standards and are free from conflicts of interest:

*
Banning
federal
judges
from
owning
individual
stocks
and
securities,
commercial
real
estate,
trusts,
and
other
investments.
*
*
Strengthening
restrictions
on
judicial
gifts
and
privately
funded
travel.
*
*
Imposing
the
existing
Code
of
Conduct
for
U.S.
Judges
on
the
Supreme
Court
—
the
only
court
in
the
country
not
currently
subject
to
an
ethical
code.
*
*
Improving
disclosure
of
judicial
speeches
and
case
assignments,
while
mandating
the
livestreaming
of
court
proceedings
and
new
judicial
workplace
surveys.
*
*
Requiring
Supreme
Court
Justices
to
issue
written
recusal
decisions
whenever
a
litigant
requests
recusal
and
forcing
the
Judicial
Conference
to
issue
advisory
opinions
with
their
recusal
recommendations.
*
*
Closing
the
loophole
that
allows
judges
to
escape
accountability
by
retiring
from
the
bench,
strengthening
disciplinary
authority
for
the
Judicial
Conference,
setting
up
expedited
impeachment
procedures
for
federal
judges,
and
allowing
the
public
to
file
complaints
against
Supreme
Court
Justices
—
like
all
other
federal
judges
—
through
a
new
Supreme
Court
Complaints
Review
Committee.
*
*
Limiting
the
ability
of
courts
to
seal
records
that
contain
important
information
for
the
protection
of
public
health
or
safety,
often
concealed
at
the
urging
of
massive
corporations.

Look: Congresswoman Jayapal and I aren’t new to this issue.

We’ve also put out the most ambitious anti-corruption plan since Watergate — targeting corruption across the federal government.

And we’ve called on Chief Justice John Roberts to clean up the judiciary — including after the revelations about Justice Thomas’s recent failure to recuse himself, and after a report that over 131 federal judges violated federal law and ethics guidelines by overseeing cases involving companies in which they or their family members owned individual stock.

But Chief Justice Roberts has simply failed to act. So we’ve got a plan to do it for him.

Beyond this bill, there’s more we can do to restore faith in an independent judiciary committed to the rule of law. I’ve been pushing to expand the Supreme Court by four or more seats to rebalance this institution that’s been hijacked by right-wing extremists. But let’s make progress by tackling corruption.

There’s real momentum behind the Judicial Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act — 19 of our colleagues in Congress, and a multitude of national organizations are already on board. But now we need to show that the American people are raising their voices on this.

Will you add your name to say you support our Judicial Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act? Make your voice heard on this issue that is powerfully important to our democracy. [[link removed]]

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth


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