The other day, the New York Times published an exposé revealing that Justice Samuel Alito allegedly colluded with abortion opponents and wealthy donors in 2014 to begin a campaign of what essentially was bribery to target fence-sitting justices to “stiffen” their “resolve” to take “uncompromising stances that could eventually lead to a reversal of Roe.” This was on the heels of Justice Clarence Thomas “temporarily” blocking a court decision forcing Sen. Lindsey Graham to testify under oath about his effort to persuade Georgia election officials to “find” enough votes to help Donald Trump overturn his defeat in the state. This obvious breach in judicial ethics—given that Thomas’ wife “Ginni” was revealed to be one of the more fanatical election fraudsters, using all her connections with government officials to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
This is a U.S. Supreme Court seemingly on the brink of chaos, and yet it seems like it exists in a bastion high in the sky, untouchable by mere mortals. That is the way some of the justices seem to behave in their lifetime positions. They lord over the country, their opinions greater than all but those who vote in the majority on the court. We would expect the most qualified, dispassionate people to serve on the court without a political agenda with such power, and we are always told by Republican nominees that they “respect” precedent and assure the skeptical that they do not intend to take away people’s rights because of their own “feelings,” before revealing their true colors once they are safely in their life-time seats on the court.
Whatever your thoughts about Roe v. Wade, for example, the court majority's decisions are usually about taking away rights, not giving them—and that is typically how the right-wing of the court generally operates. The exception, of course, is when it is about extending rights or annulling regulations that in the end harms people and society. So who is to protect the rights of people the right-wing of the court decides don’t count? Congress can pass laws, but on issues of “cultural” concern to a fanatical minority, this is usually difficult to do.
Of course it is futile to expect justices to be “impartial,” because they were not nominated for their “impartiality”—they are generally nominated by the party in power to offset the influence of justices installed by the other party. Still, there are those justices who seem to have a hard time concealing their lack of judicial impartiality, with the further to the right the justice is, the more unmindful of what they reveal to the public.
From a 2020 article, Bloomberg noted that while
The Supreme Court has power because we have all chosen to submit to its power. It has no army. It cannot enforce its own pronouncements. What it has is our perception that its rulings are legitimate, and because we view its work as legitimate, we comply. We adhere to its judgments—even when we deeply disagree—because we believe, even if we aren’t consciously aware of it, in the rule of law and the principles that lay the very foundation of our nation.
But now that “legitimacy” is being questioned by decisions that have little to do with the law, but the right-wing majority imposing its cultural and pro-corporate paymaster views on a majority of the country. Democratic lawmakers are now threatening to do what lawmakers in the past have been loath to do: unless Chief Justice John Roberts starts doing something to rein in clearly unethical behavior that undermines the court’s credibility—such as a justice knee-deep in election conspiracies that undermine democracy (Thomas) to be anywhere near election-related issues—then Congress at some point will consider legislation mandating codes of conduct for justices that include penalties for failure to abide by them. Perhaps there could be calls for a constitutional amendment for term limits or recall elections.
While there is technically a way to remove a justice legally—impeachment—this occurred only once and that back in 1805, when Salmon Chase was impeached but then acquitted by the Senate. The charge against him? Being “overly partisan” in some of his decisions. In 1969 Abe Fortas became the first (and only) justice to resign under pressure, when already an associate justice LBJ elevated him to be the nominee for chief justice. Opponents to his nomination in the Senate dug up alleged financial improprieties, such a being paid a secret retainer for legal advice. And yet we’ve had right-wing nominees accused of sexual assault (Brett Kavanaugh), yet after tearful denials all was forgotten.
Letters from members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees sent to the chief justice about the ethical improprieties of Alito and Thomas were responded to with a two-page letter claiming that the Supreme Court basically follows the same guidelines as other federal judicial appointees…
…without actually addressing the question. Alito and Thomas would likely ignore any admonishing anyways; Roberts used to have some power to influence other right-wing justices when he represented the “fifth” vote before Trump’s unqualified, extremist Federalist Society candidates were seated, but now he is just the sixth vote, and as seen in the Roe v. Wade decision he is just another cog in the wheel, to either join in or be ignored by the five partisan extremists on conservative issues close to their hearts, which for the most part means a descent into more societal division, white nationalism, xenophobia and general mismanagement of the kind that generally leads to financial and environmental disaster in the long-term while satisfying the ignorant in the short-term.
There is nothing in the “ethical” guidelines that the Supreme Court governs itself by that will do anything to stop that, and the credibility of the current court will sink even further, merely another consequence of the election of the most incompetent and morally and ethically corrupt president in this nation’s history.
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