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| Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas |
This Thursday, conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reported on his annual financial forms that he received various gifts, including private jet flights, luxury vacations, and real-estate transactions with Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, who has been known to donate money to conservative causes. Thomas also edited earlier annual filings with gifts from Crow stating that he had "inadvertently omitted" the gifts in previous years (NYT).
This news comes after investigative journalists at ProPublica discovered that both Thomas and conservative justice Alito had been receiving gifts from wealthy conservatives, and at times even by those who had cases before the court, a serious ethical concern--as it can be easily interpreted as bribery-- for the sanctity of justice opinions. These financial reports have drawn mass attention to democrats, who are pushing for more transparent financial practices among justices, as well as advocating for a formal ethics code for justice's conduct, which does not currently exist (WPO). There have been a plethora of explanations provided by Thomas as to why he received the gifts in question, including that he needed the flights on private jets for protection, or that he simply considered Crow a friend, but in general Thomas' legal team claims all of his dealings with Crow were fully ethical (NYT).
Furthermore, it seems that Thomas, though he has reported some of his financial transactions with Crow, has failed to be fully transparent, with investigations uncovering unreported tuition payments for Thomas' family members, or a $267,230 RV (NYT).
According to a poll done by Marquette University, less than 35% of Americans believe that the Supreme Court is maintaining high ethical standards (MU), which is relatively low with regard to the past 50 years of public opinion on the Supreme Court. Relating to what we covered in Chapter 2 about self-regulating and self-balanced governments, the role of the Supreme Court, besides carrying out judicial review, is to maintain the power of judging the constitutionality of presidential acts and laws from Congress, placing a check on both other branches of government. If the sanctity of Supreme Court opinions begins to fall apart--in this case via potential bribes--those checks become corrupted, and our federal government may fail to properly self-regulate.
On the conservative side, pundits argue that the idea that Thomas' and Alito's conduct is unethical is a product of liberals blowing the news out of proportion and that in reality, the financial reports should not be of much concern. However, when looking at the evidence, it seems that since trust in the Supreme Court is at an all-time low, from a survey whose respondents were 40% Republican, 42% Democrat, and 18% independent (MU), it is not only liberals who feel that this behavior is not dismissable. Furthermore, receiving "gifts" of such splendor would be considered ethically dubious regardless of political affiliation--conservative, liberal, or otherwise. Within context, public trust in the federal government in general is decreasing, both on the left--with regards to Trump's federal charges--, and on the right. The ultimate effect of this mass distrust in our branches of government remains to be seen.
7 comments:
I really liked how you gave both perspectives, conservatives and liberals, becuase it shows to some degree how different morals each side has. I think that receiving extravagant gifts from people that have cases before the Supreme Court is very very unethical and it lowers my trust that judges from the Supreme Court will do the right thing. The Checks and Balances system would be curropt if not already, if judges from the Supreme Court are being persuaded to either the left or right side and therefore it would influence the decisions they'd make, decisons that might affect many people. It woudn't be a bad idea implementing a code of conduct for these judges, specially after all this came to light becuase Supreme Court federal judges are the only ones not bound by a code of conduct.
https://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/governmental_legislative_work/publications/washingtonletter/feb-23-wl/scotus-ethics-0223wl/
I think it's rather appalling to see how open parts of the GOP (though of course, the democrats are also not blameless in this regard) are about not only their disregard for American principles, but also about their willingness to engage in morally and politically corrupt and bankrupt behavior. The interesting trend I am seeing in American politics is not these things existing when they once did not (corruption has of course always been a fact of politics, and one that predates the US), but rather how the euphemisms that used to surround these things have faded away and the quiet part is being said out loud without any consequences for it. I appreciated your analysis of the demographics of the surveys you cited -- a lot of the time, surveys cited in any paper or article do not dig deep into the distribution of those surveyed and how that effects the output / results, but understanding this is key to determining the legitimacy of the survey and the universality of the results (i.e, a survey of purely republicans voters could be labelled as "74% of voters believe trump won the 2020 election", but this would obviously not be representative of the general public and is deceptively labelled).
The saga of Clarence Thomas continues! It really is quite something seeing how blatantly corrupt our Justices are, with this guy outright admitting to accepting what are essentially bribes from plaintiffs before the Supreme Court. And he wasn't even admitting to everything. There are still other, shadier transactions, like the payments for his daughter's tuition that will likely come back to bite him in the end. I think the surveys you cite are extremely damning and very indicative of how low the Supreme Court has sunk. I do hope that this might spur Congress to push for greater transparency for the Justices on the Court, and maybe even an ethics code, but knowing that the Congress is currently dominated by Republicans, this likely won't happen. What is definitely going to happen is that more people are going to lose trust in SCOTUS as a result of this ongoing scandal, and I have the feeling that there is a lot, lot more lurking beneath the surface. This is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Who knows if more will come out.
Satvik,
I think your analysis of the public distrust in the Supreme Court was really clearly presented and all of your arguments were backed up really well by multiple sources. It would be interesting to see what the responses to the Marquette survey would be when divided by party, although that data might not be accessible. It will also be interesting to see the backlash/lack of backlash to Clarence Thomas’s actions and if he will continue to serve on the Supreme Court.
Such an event reflects America well. While yes I agree with your statement that such an event is causing public trust of the federal government to decrease, I see it as already being at a low standard. Rather than this shocking "Wow! Our government is not so honorable after all!" this feels like a confirmation of the already apparent suspicions of government. American disillusionment with the presidency has been ingrained for decades now, stretching all the way back to the Vietnam War. Now, such mistrust is reflected even in the Supreme Court officials, ones who decide what is right and wrong. It's almost ironic isn't it. For such a scandal to only be reported after the investigative work of journalists is another great American theme (Watergate, muckrackers, Ida B. Wells, etc.). What I'm wondering is are the liberals so vocal about this topic not only because of the giftee but also because the gifter donates to CONSERVATIVE and not LIBERAL cases?
I agree deeply with your argument that the public is growing in distrust in regard to the government. Throughout history, there have been many issues that have done nothing but increase distrust. It seems that especially now with increased crime, corrupt elections, and countless scandals within Congress and the white house, no one can blame the public! The fact that our Supreme Court officials can accept such blatant bribery and face little scrutiny attests to the public's view that the government is failing. The only way possible to restore public opinion and right the wrongs of the government is to charge Justice Thomas with multiple counts of bribery. As you say receiving such blatant gifts is not only unethical but illegal. The rule of law should be upheld and due to Justice Thomas' position, he should be held to a higher standard. Only then could public faith in the government be somewhat healed.
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