You must admit, it would be boring if we all agreed on everything. Not only that, but it would also put people like me – commentators, columnists and most politicians – out of a job. We’d have nothing to argue about.
Still, there are at least three issues today I think we should all, in fact, agree on.
First, given that we’re averaging about one mass shooting a day, that Congress must do something about gun safety to protect all Americans, especially our kids. Second, that the federal government should pay its bills. Period. With no strings attached, or hostage-taking or after-the-fact game-playing. We as a government should pay our bills just as we as a family must.
The third item on which there should be no disagreement: that members of the Supreme Court should be subject to the same ethics rules that apply to every other federal judge.
It’s hard to believe that last statement is so controversial. And yet, in a recent statement sent to Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), all nine sitting Supreme Court justices disagreed with it. Liberal and conservative justices may disagree on abortion, affirmative action, guns, voting rights, prayer in schools and a host of other issues. But when it comes to a mandatory code of conduct for members of the nation’s highest court, they’re all in lock step: We don’t want no stinking code of ethics.
Chief Justice John Roberts and members of the court were responding to revelations by ProPublica that Dallas developer Harlan Crow showered Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, with years of vacations on private jets, yachts, and luxury resorts, bought and restored Thomas’s mother’s home and paid private school tuition for Thomas’s grand-nephew — none of which was reported by Thomas on annual disclosure forms.
This was a failure that, the justices unanimously seem to agree, is no big deal and represents no reason to change the “voluntary” ethics guidelines they now operate under — and which are clearly not working.
Which boggles the mind. This is not a Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative issue. This is common sense. Is it really so radical to expect that any justice who accepts millions of dollars in freebies from a billionaire developer should at least, like any other judge or judicial employee in the nation, have to report it?
No wonder the Supreme Court, once the top-rated government institution, now ranks near the bottom. According to an NBC poll, the court started off its current term with its lowest approval rating ever: 42 percent of Americans disapproved of the court’s work; only 35 percent approved.
This is not a new issue. Ethics rules for the Supreme Court have been debated for years. But now, thanks to Clarence Thomas, it’s reached the point where if the court itself will not act, then some other body must step in to hold Thomas accountable and pressure the court to act. There are three options.
In theory, Congress could pass legislation imposing ethics guidelines on the court, but Republicans who rushed to Thomas’s defense would block this from happening. Second, the Judicial Conference of the United States, the agency charged with administering federal courts, could act. The third and best option is for Attorney General Merrick Garland to launch a criminal investigation of Thomas.
After all, federal judicial guidelines clearly state: “One who knowingly and willfully falsifies or fails to file or report any information required under the Act is subject to civil and criminal sanctions.” (5 U.S.C. 13106a). Garland has said “No man is above the law.” What is he waiting for?
Press is host of “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”