Supreme Court Shits

ACCORDING TO LIZ - Fifty-nine percent of registered voters disapprove of the Supreme Court while just thirty percent approve.

That’s according to a June Quinnipiac poll, its lowest rating in the twenty years the question has been asked. This is not an outlier.

A Gallup poll last year shows only a quarter of Americans had a lot of confidence in the Court, and a survey this April reports nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults no longer having confidence in the highest court in the land.

I wonder why?

ALL nine Justices colluded on a statement released on April 25^th that there was no need for independent oversight, no need for mandatory compliance with ethics guidelines, no need for more transparency on recusals – they were the Supremes and would self-police themselves.

Yes, oversight could hamper the perception of the Court’s independent nature but, given the growing slew of ethical irregularities and multiple charges of bribery brought against some of their number, isn’t their independence already in question?

How well have the current Justices self-policed in the past? Could the four years of failed discussion on a simple code of conduct for the Court be mired in the decades of past deceits?

All six of the Republican-appointed Supreme Court judges are current or former members of the Federalist Society, established forty years ago by a small group of conservative Harvard law students and named in honor of The Federalist Papers.\]

The Federalist Papers are a collection of articles and essays written in 1787 and 1788 with the intent of influencing the voters to ratify the Constitution. How would their authors, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison view the behavior of those on the Supreme Court who claim to wear their mantle?

In a case of let’s kick ’em long enough and hard enough to get at least some of them to step down, check out the following:

John G. Roberts, Jr.

Despite growing concerns about the appearance of corruption on the Supreme Court undermining its credibility, Chief Justice John Roberts has refused to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on potential reforms to the Court
As a legal recruiter, a job Jane Roberts landed after her husband’s confirmation to the Court, she has been paid over $10 million in commissions from law firms that regularly argue cases before her husband
Roberts did not report his wife’s income from these firms whose very business is making a living trying to sway judges to vote specific ways

Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

Alito's elevation to the Supreme Court was driven by Leonard Leo, co-chair of the conservative Federalist Society and a key figure in the decades-long effort to pull the U.S. judiciary to the right
Hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, and real estate acquisition and management magnate Robin Arkley II were both major donors to Leo's right-wing political and networking groups
Leo asked "if he and Alito could fly on [Singer’s] jet" for 2008 trip to Alaska while Arkley provided posh accommodations at his commercial fishing lodge
Alito did not disclose this trip – despite an estimated price-tag of $100,000 not including the complimentary accommodation, and the pricy food and booze and other amenities provided such an elite group
Nor did Alito ever recuse himself from the multiple cases that Singer’s hedge fund had before the Court in subsequent years
Alito’s trip to Rome shortly after voting to overturn Roe v. Wade was funded by the right wing Religious Liberty Initiative which had filed a number of the amicus briefs opposing abortion
In May, Alito wrote the majority opinion which severely curtailed protections for what could be protected under the Clean Water Act, a huge win for big polluters and a catastrophic loss for underprivileged communities, public health, the environment, and local ecosystems
Alito’s wife inherited a seven-figure stock portfolio including mineral rights and shares in Chevron and other energy companies, the value of which would be significantly impacted by the Supreme Court’s Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency determination; Alito didn’t recuse himself
In June of 2022, four months after the Court elected to hear the case and well before deliberations began in that fall, Alito’s wife had leased drilling rights on a property in Oklahoma to a fossil fuel company; with water restrictions out of the way, both Alitos stand to make mucho money

Amy Coney Barrett, aka the handmaiden of the right

In the months after her elevation to the Court, Barrett sold her home to a professor who has taken a leadership role in the Religious Liberty Initiative, a group which advocates for religious “freedom” i.e. elevating Christian fundamentalism above individual rights
The Religious Liberty Initiative has since filed at least nine amicus briefs in cases related to the issues before the Supreme Court
Barrett received a $2 million advance in 2022 for a book about how judges must remain neutral

Neil M. Gorsuch

Gorsuch received a total of $655,000 (through 2020) in payments for the 2019 Penguin publication of his book, but declined to disqualify himself from a recent case involving the publisher
Gorsuch sold a 40-acre Colorado ranch that had been on the market for nearly two years to an undisclosed buyer for almost $2 million
That buyer has since been outed as the CEO of a law firm that has been involved in 22 cases before the Supreme Court

Ketanji Brown Jackson, the newest Supreme

Brown made multiple amendments to her financial disclosures in the days following her nomination, claiming she had “inadvertently omitted” information
This included self-employed consulting earnings her husband received from advising on medical malpractice cases
Reimbursements surfaced for travel and board memberships as far back as 2014

Elena Kagan

Kagan turned down a care package of bagels and lox, concerned she could be violating ethics rules for accepting gifts
Unfortunately, even as the exception that proves the rule, her recusals for minor infractions give excess power to the alt-right

Brett M. Kavanaugh

Charges of pushing his penis in a woman’s face (Deborah Ramirez), holding a woman down and groping her (Christine Blasey Ford), participating in drugging and gang-rape (Julie Swetnick) indicate that Kavanaugh has no respect for and therefore cannot be expected to take the rights of a majority of Americans into account in his rulings
The FBI received 4,500 tips about Kavanaugh during his confirmation process that, instead of being thoroughly investigated, were simply referred to Trump’s White House, the folks trying to get Kavanaugh ratified
In 2016, Kavanaugh reported as much as $200,000 in credit card debt, primarily for purchases of season and playoff tickets to Washington Nationals baseball games; for whom did he buy them and who were the “friends” who helped reduce the debt to below reporting requirements prior to his nomination?
Kavanaugh has the lowest net worth of any Supreme; at the time he was confirmed, it was well below six figures (his eight compadres sit comfortably in the millionaire plus range) making him the obvious target for anyone looking to buy a vote
Senator Joe Manchin of Mountain Valley Pipeline fame was the only Democrat to support Kavanaugh’s confirmation

Sonia Sotomayor

Since 2013 Knopf has paid Sotomayor $3.1 million in advances for her 2013 memoir and four inspirational children's books and, since, paid her over half a million in royalties
Sotomayor did not recuse herself from three copyright appeals cases involving Penguin Random House, parent company of Knopf

Clarence Thomas

Failure to distance himself from his wife’s urging overthrow of the Biden election makes Thomas, de facto, a supporter of Trump’s lies
Demonstrably a congenital liar himself, he also failed to report his wife’s considerable income
Then failed to recuse himself on many occasions where he, his wife, or close associates were affiliated with one of the involved parties
His documented objectification of women and his high-profile confirmation protests that exploded the issue of workplace harassment, underlines Thomas’ lack of empathy for over half of Americans
Apologists cite a abusive childhood but that is all the more reason he not be allowed to visit his personal demons on the rest of us
Although by law Thomas was unpaid, his judicial prominence added inappropriate gravitas to his questionable fundraising activities for political figures and speaking engagements for hyper-partisan groups
Decades of his failing to report undisclosed high-value billionaire-funded trips and vacations augment the appearance of corruption given they were in the company of aggressive advocates for conservative change
Ditto his ongoing failure to report lavish presents from people with political agendas that could be advanced incrementally through Supreme Court decisions at the same time as he was urging the Court to eliminate political spending limits and disclosure laws
Thomas profited from selling two houses to billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow who continues to let the Justice’s mother live in one for free
Crow also paid the $6,000 a month in private school tuition for a grand-nephew of Thomas who has been in his great-uncle’s legal custody since age 6
The obvious lack of common sense in not reporting so much makes Clarence Thomas unsuitable for any judicial role, ever.

Mmm. Certainly looks like the far more egregious lapses are by the right-wing holier-than-thou activist judges. Those proposed and promoted by the Federalist Society.

And goosed onto the Court by Republican presidents. Presidents who gained office due to the questionable legitimacy of the Electoral College. None of whom was elected by a majority of Americans.

A significant number of the more scandalous actions listed above could be considered flagrant violations of judicial ethics which, when exposed, should have led to immediate resignation.

Congress must take action now to reform the Supreme, including, at minimum, passing a legally binding code of ethics similar to what every other federal judge is required to follow, and establishing term limits to restrict the accrual of contacts and potential for extortion.

Monied interests will fight to the last penny to keep control of the Supreme Court.

The rest of us must demand that Congress completely cap this geyser of gold, and rebalance the scales of justice.

(Liz Amsden is a contributor to CityWatch and an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)