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David Lat's avatar

I'll kick things off with this point (which I kept out of the main post because I don't want these discussion prompts to be too long).

One reader of our article questioned the wisdom of extreme disclosure. For example, what if the justices had to disclose everyone they meet with, ever (sort of like the White House visitor log)? That could be a deterrent to, for example, the kind of "across the aisle" relationships and friendships that we want to encourage (because justices might not want to be known as hobnobbing with the "enemy"). It might also deter people from judicial service. (Yes, I know some high-powered lawyers who coulda been SCOTUS contenders but decided, on balance, that that wasn't something they wanted to shoot for, given the present-day sacrifices required for a very uncertain future benefit.)

This is a fair point, and I don't think Zach and I are advocating for so-called "radical transparency." The justices are entitled to some amount of a private life; they didn't sign up for The Truman Show. But I think we can still improve disclosure while not intruding unfairly into their affairs. For example, as Gabe Roth of Fix the Court raised with me when I interviewed him for my podcast, we could have a requirement that the justices disclose when their spouse receives more than $100,000 in income from a single source—e.g., a key client for a law firm, a big donor to Ginni Thomas's Liberty Central, etc.

I welcome other suggestions for how to beef up disclosure while still respecting some privacy for the justices.

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Mitchell Epner's avatar

The number one rule should be that Justices should not accept any trip, honoraria, etc. that allows the Justice to live a lifestyle above their paygrade. They certainly should not accept payments for real estate that their family-members live in, or academic "scholarships" for members of their families. Similarly, they should not take "loans" from wealthy "friends" to finance ultra-luxury mobile homes (or any home).

Such "gifts" give the appearance (and perhaps create the reality) that Justices are bought & paid for by the moneyed elite. Even if a Justice would have voted the exact same way without the "gifts", it also creates an incentive structure for aspiring judges and Justices to take the bench knowing that their material needs will be underwritten by wealthy patrons.

When my wife was an executive at a major retailer, there was a code of conduct that required her to refuse any gift worth more than $25. We returned dozens of baby gifts. It is crazy that Macy's has a more stringent ethical code than SCOTUS.

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