Tony Mauro
and Marcia Coyle, The National Law Journal;
The
bill is the latest of repeated efforts by Congress to impose an ethics
code on the Supreme Court, which is exempt from the code first
promulgated in 1973 by the Judicial Conference.
"The first bill introduced by the Democratic-led House of
Representatives last week contains a provision that would include U.S.
Supreme Court justices for the first time in a newly created code of
conduct.
If passed, the provision could raise separation-of-powers issues and
would likely irritate the high court, which covets its independence and
its special status under the Constitution. The provision could also
revive the controversy over ethics complaints against Justice Brett
Kavanaugh that were dismissed last month because he is now on the Supreme Court, outside the purview of existing judicial ethics rules.
H.R. 1, dubbed the “For the People Act,” is a wide-ranging bill that covers issues of transparency, corruption, ethics and campaign finance reform."
