Impartiality and the Supreme Court

Floor Speech

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, on a day that we're talking about the continuing resolution, I want to talk about a body that may someday be judging the continuing resolution--the Supreme Court. There is perhaps nothing more important to the preservation of our democracy than the continued guaranteed impartiality of our Supreme Court. It's a uniquely American institution; it's been given enormous power to invalidate American laws; and it needs to be dispensed with complete blind justice, blind to outside influence.

However, this Nation's confidence in the blind justice of the Supreme Court has been badly shaken recently by a series of revelations regarding possible conflicts of interest by Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas in the Citizens United case. This landmark 5-4 decision overturned restrictions on corporate funding in elections that had been in place since 1947, and immediately thereafter, millions and millions of dollars in shadowy special interest group donations flowed into American campaigns. Two of the main benefactors of these groups were Charles and David Koch, billionaire brothers who operate a Kansas-based energy business. They spent about $2.6 billion that we know about in the 2010 election cycle and likely a lot more in anonymous donations.

In addition to funding these outside groups, they also organize a lot of conferences in which they gather people of like mind to discuss their radical views and plot strategies to benefit their interests. Now if I were to ask somebody on a main street in my district if they would be comfortable with a Supreme Court justice attending a conference like this, having their plane flight and the hotel all paid for by the special interests, I know what their answer would be. They'd say, no way. Yet Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas did just that and they thought it was just fine. They didn't recuse themselves from the Citizens United decision at all.

But here's the real problem. This could be just an isolated problem to the Citizens United case. Or it could be much more widespread, with justices conflicted on several fronts, refusing to disclose their conflicts or recuse themselves when they have actual conflicts of interest. But we have no idea, because right now there is no law requiring Supreme Court justices to disclose their conflicts of interest as is required of all other Federal justices.

I don't believe we should be meddling in the day-to-day business of the Supreme Court. I get why there is great wisdom in separating legislative and judicial functions. But there's no undue burden in just requiring sunlight on Supreme Court proceedings.

So when we return to Washington after the recess, I will be introducing legislation to do just that, to implement a few reasonable reforms to add greater transparency and disclosure requirements on the Supreme Court. I hope my colleagues will join me.

My legislation will apply the Judicial Conference's Code of Conduct to the Supreme Court, which now applies to all other Federal judges. It will require the Justices to simply publicly disclose why they've recused themselves from a

particular case. And it will ask the Court to develop a simple process so that the parties to a case can request the Court to decide whether a particular Justice has a conflict of interest.

I think this is an important step forward for transparency of our democracy and of the Supreme Court, and I ask my colleagues to join me in this important legislation.

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