The Supreme Court should want to subject itself to the highest possible standards of ethical conduct at all times -- in public and in private -- such that its conduct is beyond all reproach and the Court is deserving of the abiding respect of the American People.
— @judgeluttig (@judgeluttig) May 3, 2023
Still begging the question: who enforces the rules? Being subject to strict rules and actually being held to them by a third party (self-policing works SO well!) are still two very different things.In a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, linked in the article below, this is what I said to the Committee yesterday. https://t.co/Wd2uayj0hk
— @judgeluttig (@judgeluttig) May 3, 2023
Aside from the question of what rules do we enforce? And how?Ethical guidelines are for guidance. Disciplinary rules are for enforcement. But short of impeachment, how do you enforce rules against Justices? Lower court judges can be suspended. Imagine the political furor if Thomas was suspended, especially by the actions of a third party.
Until we address that difference, we’re just trimming the branches of the tree of evil; we aren’t getting at the roots.
Insomnia gives one a chance to ponder (stress?) over everything you have read during the day, and sometimes you can think see interesting parallels. To tie together a couple of threads in recent posts, those around SCOTUS, and around congress addressing the debt limit. The Freedom Caucus, and really MTG along with her cohort, view politics as performance art. They have little interest in actually governing, it's about "winning the day", getting seen by media and scoring points against the Democrats. If you were actually interested in governing then the entire approach to the debt limit fight would be different. In many ways they reflect their electorate, which also seems less and less interested in governance. Proper posturing and extremist positions are much more likely to win a Republican primary than experience and a record actually governing. It's reflected in the rise of candidates vying for high office without ever having served in any lower position.
ReplyDeleteThere are parallels with our current SCOTUS. I follow SCOTUSblog which on a daily basis links to interesting articles on the court. In the last week there have been several on the glacial pace at rendering decisions this term, the lowest number in over 100 years. The court has been trending downward in the number of cases it takes, this year only 59, less than a third of what it used to take a generation ago.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-slow-issue-rulings-glacially-slow-rcna81536
The current court looks uninterested in governing too. Previously, the court would take up a lot of cases on more minor points of law, providing guidance to lower courts and clarity to the legal community on how to interpret law. This was effectively good governance (putting aside how you viewed the outcomes of the decisions), making for a more efficient legal system with more clarity of potential outcomes. There were relatively few blockbuster cases, the general idea was to avoid them since they changed the status quo. Now we have a court that seems genuinely disinterested in those kinds of cases, culling the docket to a bare minimum. At 59 cases, each justice will average less than 7 opinions from the fall and winter terms. Of the 25% of opinions issued this term, almost all are unanimous or near unanimous on the mundane issues. Awaiting are a slew of block buster cases, first amendment right to discriminate, student loans, severely kneecapping the regulatory state and so on. The court doesn't see itself as rendering a workman like service to the legal community and nation, but instead rendering pronouncements from on high. It starts to make more sense why Alito is so snippy when challenged, he is important and you better act like it! This change in attitude is reflected in the ongoing ethics scandal. Previously most nominees to the court were near the end of prestigious legal careers, being on the court was a capstone to all their previous work. Now justices are deliberately picked to be young so they can serve extremely extended terms. They are picked not to run the legal system but to put their ideological stamp on every decision. With those in mind, it's not surprising they want money, prestige and fealty. They were told they are the masters of the legal universe, not caretakers of the legal universe, and so they are acting like it. I don't expect it to get any better because I can't see any opposing force that changes the current culture of this court.