Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in his capacity as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, co-led a hearing of the full Judiciary Committee entitled, “Supreme Court Ethics Reform.”

The hearing explored the recent torrent of media reports detailing unethical conduct by Justices of the Supreme Court and legislative solutions to improve ethics, accountability, and transparency at the highest Court.

Whitehouse’s Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act would require the Supreme Court to adopt stricter disclosure rules and establish a process for investigating a justice’s misconduct.

Recent revelations that all 6 conservative justices and their conservative predecessors are and have been guilty of this bribery scheme for decades solidifies the illegitimacy of the court. Any ruling made in the last 30 years MUST be re-examined by a court that actually has ethics rules and laws that make taking bribes criminal and ethics boards that ENFORCE those rules and laws, not self regulation and enforcement which clearly has failed and destroyed all legitimacy of the court system.

In ‘25, when Republicans lose even filibuster power (fingers crossed), insist your representatives not only fix this gaping hole in accountability, but prosecute and remove any justice who violated normal ethics rules (took gifts but didn’t report them, sold property and didn’t report it, whose spouse takes gifts and jobs from people with business with the court and didn’t recuse themselves, etc) and replace them with new, progressive justices with ethics.