Tell Your Senator to Hold the Corrupt Supreme Court Accountable

As you’ve no doubt seen, the Supreme Court is facing a massive legitimacy crisis, not just because of their devastating rulings rolling back our fundamental rights, but for their highly questionable behavior off the bench as well. Recent reporting has indicated that Justice Clarence Thomas accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in lavish gifts from a billionaire MAGA donor, including private jet flights and luxury trips on yachts, as well as school tuition and rent payments for members of his family. And the corruption doesn’t stop there– his colleague, Samuel Alito was caught displaying a symbol in support of Donald Trump and the “Stop the Steal” movement to overturn the 2020 presidential election that led to the January 6 insurrection. Despite the fact that he has shown clear bias, he continues to sit on the bench while the Court decides if Trump has immunity over his role in inciting the attempted coup. 

All of this has the effect of throwing the Court’s impartiality and fairness into question. How can we trust that their decisions were made fairly when they’re clearly in the pockets of the parties involved? The Supreme Court is supposed to be a fair arbiter of the law and the constitution, not a vending machine that grants favors to billionaires and Donald Trump. 

That’s why Congress must pass the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act (SCERT). This bill would impose ethical rules on all Supreme Court justices to ensure that the highest court in the land is not held to the lowest ethical standards. In particular, SCERT would:

• Create meaningful and enforceable ethics guidelines for the Supreme Court by establishing a binding code of conduct for all of the justices and clarifying and strengthening the justices’ duty to recuse themselves from cases in which they have conflicts of interest and requiring public disclosure of those conflicts.
• Mandate that, at a minimum, the justices adhere to the same gift, travel, and income disclosure standards as Members of Congress.
• Impose a duty on justices to know their own and their family’s financial and other interests that could be substantially affected by cases before them.

Check to see if your senator is a co-sponsor of SCERT. If they’re not a co-sponsor yet, call and tell them to support SCERT and urge them to do everything in their power to pass it through the Senate. While SCERT won’t solve all of the problems brewing at the Supreme Court, it’s a critical step in the right direction