We Need to Talk About Ethics Reform

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Strict Scrutiny is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Guess what, folks? It's back to school season. And this year, five million children across Texas are going to be greeted by, wait for it, the 10 commandments in their classrooms. Texas politicians passed a law requiring the 10 commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom, forcing their religion on every kid in those schools. 28 families in Texas, supported by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, are taking the fight to the Supreme Court. And we need you to amplify their voices before the Supreme Court gets its hands on this case. They're going to go up, but we're going to fight to get them taken down.

That was Texas public school parent Ted Lowe. Ted and Rebecca Lowe are an interfaith couple. Ted is Jewish and Rebecca is Christian, and their kids are in Texas public schools. The story that they tell in this video is moving, and we hope that everyone hears it and shares it. Because there is a human cost to Christian nationalist policies like these Ten Commandments laws and the decisions that the Supreme Court hands down. You can visit au.org/10c to learn more about this case and how you can help join the fight to protect church state separation.

SPEAKER_2 (1:16)

Mr. Chief Justice, please, forward. It's an old joke, but when an argument man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they're going to have the last word. She spoke, not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity.

All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.

Kate Shaw (1:59)

Hello, and welcome back to Strict Scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. I'm Kate Shaw, your lone host for this edition of our special bonus series, Hot Supreme Court Reform September. And for this installment of our series, I'm delighted to be joined by returning guest, Gabe Roth, who is the founder and executive director of Fix the Court, which for over a decade has been focused monomaniacally, you might even say, and I say that with admiration and appreciation on reforming the Supreme Court and making it more democratically accountable. Gabe, welcome back to Strict Scrutiny.

Gabe Roth (2:31)

Thanks so much for having me back, Kate.

Kate Shaw (2:33)

So as you know, Gabe, and listeners by now should know, we are spending September and just a sliver of October doing weekly deep dives on various SCOTUS reform proposals. We've talked about term limits and court expansion and jurisdiction stripping. And if you haven't listened to those episodes, please make sure to go back and do that. They're great conversations. But for today, I want to focus on Supreme Court ethics, although maybe at the end of the conversation, we'll sort of broaden things out a bit. So Gabe, Supreme Court ethics are something very much in your wheelhouse. This has been something that you focused on for quite some time. And maybe before we talk about reform proposals, let's take a couple of minutes and just identify the problem. So how would you describe the problem with the Supreme Court when it comes to ethics?

Gabe Roth (3:16)

I think if you just broaden it out, Fix the Court has, since we launched in 2014, has called the Supreme Court the most powerful, least accountable part of our federal government. I think that's even more so now than it was when we started in 2014 And so I think the problem is that if we see something wrong, if we see some ethical malfeasance, there's really no way to fix it because there is no impeachment and removal. That's just never going to happen. And the Supreme Court, as has been articulated by some of the justices, believes, I think, inaccurately, that it is above some of the laws that Congress passes.

So if a justice, just to give an example, is accepting lavish gifts and going on all these free trips paid for by someone who clearly has a view on how the Supreme Court should be ruling in cases, there's at least currently little that we, the public, and the public through its representatives in Congress could do to sort of tamp that down. So I think there just needs to be stronger rules of the road, maybe some different personalities of the court down the line as well. But I think just as a sort of basic level, the way I like to think about it is if you're going to have a court that has arraigated to itself so much power, right, you and I were in college when Bush and Gore came out. And so the idea that the Supreme Court decides an election, I mean, the Supreme Court came down with a major election case just last night. We're recording this on the 15th. So on the 14th, they came out with a major election ruling, they're deciding many aspects of all our elections. The Supreme Court is going to have this much power to decide life or death, and healthcare, and voting, and gerrymandering, and elections, and healthcare access, and so much more. They should follow some of the same rules that other branches of government and even the lower court judges have to follow. So that's sort of like the big picture is like, you know, there's definitely a problem that I think, given all the power the justices have, they should be looking elsewhere in government and following some of those rules.