Albany Times Union: Editorial: An unaccountable court
This excerpt is from a piece that originally ran on July 17, 2022.
A new report from the Alliance for Justice, a progressive judicial advocacy group, outlines multiple instances of current justices who are part of the high court’s conservative majority violating the Code of Judicial Conduct. Some examples:
- Justice Clarence Thomas failed to recuse himself from cases involving the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, even though his wife, Ginni Thomas, was involved in former President Donald Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 presidential election.
- Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh met with National Organization for Marriage, a group involved in opposition to same-sex marriage and other LGBTQ issues the court has addressed and likely will in the future, giving an appearance of special access.
- Justice Neil Gorsuch spoke to a conservative group, the Fund for American Studies, whose partner organization was involved in a case before the court involving public-sector unions. The event was at Trump International Hotel at a time when the court was hearing matters related to the Trump administration.
- Justice Amy Coney Barrett gave a speech at a center founded by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that included dinner with the senator and a dozen or so of his friends, at which she declared — without apparent irony — that her goal was to “convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.”