Why Don’t Supreme Court Justices Have an Ethics Code?
""When we do a Supreme Court justice, we want to know about their background in the law and everything that they know," said U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter of New York, an 87-year-old Democrat. "Nobody ever asks them, 'Are you an honest person?'"
Slaughter has been waging a long battle to pass a bill that she says would make the justices more transparent about and accountable for conduct outside the Court.
"The one thing that we take for granted, and give them the benefit of the doubt," said Slaughter, "is that they're not going to do anything that they would not have done as a federal judge."
Slaughter has been sponsoring legislation since 2013 that would require the nation's highest Court to create and follow a code of ethics.
Her bill is called "The Supreme Court Ethics Act." Last Wednesday, she reintroduced it for the third time.
All other federal judges are subject to a published official "Code of Conduct for United States Judges," which applies to all employees of the Judicial Branch's Administrative Office of the United States Courts. The code includes specific rules about ethics, integrity and even appearances of impropriety relating to outside business and political activities and the acceptance of gifts."
