Here is the gist of my new column for The Hill:
Clarence Thomas is right about declining respect for the Supreme Court — but wrong about its cause
Speaking at a conference sponsored by three conservative think tanks, Thomas blamed the leak on either a clerk or fellow justice. In the old days, he said, nobody would have leaked a single line of an opinion, let alone an entire draft. There was “belief in the court” that made confidentiality sacrosanct. Now, alas, the court has experienced a sort of “infidelity.” You “begin to look over your shoulder,” he explained, which risks “destroying the institutions that are required for a free society.”
Almost nobody is in favor of disclosing confidences or disturbing the peace in residential neighborhoods, but those phenomena are at best symptoms of declining respect for the Supreme Court. The root causes are more profound, some of which can be traced to the justices’ open disregard for the ethical norms applicable to every other American judge.
Congressional attempts to remedy the crisis of confidence have lately broken down on political lines. Democrats have proposed reform legislation to address pressing institutional issues, with little or no support from Republicans.
Just last week, the House Judiciary Committee passed the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act (SCERTA), which would enact the most comprehensive ethics reforms in many decades. The 22-16 vote was along strict party lines, with every Democrat voting in favor of the legislation and every Republican voting against it.
Perhaps congressional Republicans believe they must defend the court’s 6-3 conservative majority at every turn, but that is a mistake. Waning public confidence hurts the majority most of all, as it is their decisions that must meet the test of widespread acceptance.
[Thomas] is oblivious to the true nature of the court’s legitimacy problem, which has almost nothing to do with its internal dynamics (about which nobody else much cares, other than wannabe insiders) and far more to do with its haughty attitude toward public transparency.
You can read the entire piece here.
Comments