Joe Biden Targets Clarence Thomas in New Supreme Court Reform

President Joe Biden is targeting Justice Clarence Thomas’ ethics controversies in his new calls for Supreme Court reform.

Biden released a new plan Monday to “restore trust and accountability” back to the court. The plan, which comes as views of the High Court remains near record lows, includes three reforms, including a binding and enforceable code of conduct for the Supreme Court.

According to a fact sheet from the White House, the code of conduct would require justices “to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.”

Two provisions to the code appear to address Thomas, who is arguably the most controversial member of the bench.

The conservative justice has repeatedly sparked backlash in recent years after reports revealed that he did not properly disclose travel and gifts he received from Republican megadonors with interests before the Supreme Court.

He’s also faced scrutiny for refusing to step aside in cases that critics argue would present him with a conflict of interest given his wife’s political actions.

Ginni Thomas is a conservative activist who was implicated in the GOP-led efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Texts given to the House January 6 Committee showed her imploring former White House Cheif of Staff Mark Meadows to overturn former President Donald Trump’s loss, calling it “the greatest Heist of our History.”

Thomas has faced numerous calls to recuse himself and has even had articles of impeachment introduced against him in Congress.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, introduced an impeachment resolution against both Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito earlier this month, saying that their failure to disclose gifts and refusal to recuse themselves in certain cases “alone would amount to a deep transgression worthy of standard removal in any lower court, and would disqualify any nominee to the highest court from confirmation in the first place.”

Ocasio-Cortez also joined Representative Jamie Raskin last month to introduce the High Court Gift Ban Act, which would prohibit justices from receiving gifts valued at more than $50 in a single instance or more than $100 in aggregate over the course of a year. It would also cap gifts of personal hospitality, which are currently unregulated, at about $18,000, the value of the tax threshold for personal gifts.

“The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land but has the lowest ethical standards, which means pay-to-play billionaires, right-wing dark money groups and carbon emitting special interests have freedom to purchase the best justice money can buy,” Raskin said in a statement.

Unlike every other position within the federal judiciary, Supreme Court justices are the only ones who are not subject to an enforceable ethics code. The court adopted an ethics code mirroring the one for lower court judges in November, but it is almost entirely unenforceable. All nine current justices have signed the code, which leaves compliance entirely to each justice and does not lay out any repercussions for possible violations.

The new code of conduct was the Supreme Court’s first response to years of criticisms that the nation’s highest court lacks enforceable ethics guidelines. The absence of one, combined with a number of major landmark rulings in recent years, has led to a major drop in public trust.

A 2023 Gallup poll showed that only 41 percent of U.S. adults approve of how the court is handling its job, a sign that the Supreme Court has struggled to bounce back from its record low of 40 percent approval in September 2021.

The court’s rating fell to that devastating low after it declined to block a controversial Texas abortion law, a move that has been seen as a precursor to its 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Prior to September 2021, the court enjoyed positive approval, seeing 58 percent support in July 2020.

“Recent ethics scandals involving some Justices have caused the public to question the fairness and independence that are essential for the Court to faithfully carry out its mission to deliver justice for all Americans,” the White House said Monday.

Biden is also calling for an amendment be adopted to the Constitution to block the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling from earlier this month and for there to be term limits for justices. In 6-3 decision in Trump v. United States, the court ruled that a president is immune from prosecution when exercising the powers of the presidency. Being a Supreme Court justice is also a lifetime appointment.