Sen. Whitehouse speaks on updated Supreme Court code of conduct

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is speaking out after the Supreme Court unveiled a code of ethics for the justices.

The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Courts subcommittee praised the move as necessary for public trust, but says more still needs to be done.

Before this week, almost every court in the United States had a code of ethics that judges are required to follow. The only court without one was the nation’s highest, the U.S. Supreme Court.

Now, the judges releasing a 15-page document for their code, but some politicians said it is not nearly enough.

“They’ve created no process to determine whether or not it’s been violated. So, it’s a little bit like saying we’re going to follow the rules of baseball, but this whole umpiring thing we’re not going to go there. They call their own balls and strikes. They decide whether or not they’re safe at first base, and none of that is the way this should operate. No other court operates this way,” explained Sen. Whitehouse.

Whitehouse says the code is an important step forward, but with recent examples of Justice Sotomayor allegedly using staff to push her memoir sales and Justice Alito allegedly taking trips and bribes from donors, the work isn’t finished.

“First, to make sure that it is enforceable, there is a process for evaluating a complaint about a justice. And second, we need to continue the work, looking back at what went wrong. At how many justices got how many gifts from how many billionaires and who orchestrated it and why,” Whitehouse continued.

Whitehouse said he’s has already introduced an act to do this called the “Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act.”

That was passed back in July but has yet to move forward.

“Of course, right now, we’re buried with trying to get the nominations cleared that senator Tuberville is holding. We’re trying to make sure we get the appropriations bills done, and the continuing resolution done so we don’t have to shut down the government. So, this is a very crowded moment to go to senator Schumer and say, ‘Hey let’s spend a couple of days on this,” Whitehouse said.

Later in the day Tuesday, the House passed a two-part continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown by a vote of 336 to 95 and Whitehouse told ABC 6 News that he feels confident it will pass the Senate before the deadline this weekend.

“I think it will get quite a positive reception here. I mean, we wanted no cuts in spending. We wanted the agreement about spending to be honored, and this honors it. And we wanted to make sure there was no government shutdown, and this postpones the eventuality and potentially prevents entirely a government shutdown. So — kind of a win,” Whitehouse concluded.

The Senate will have to vote in the next day or so to avoid a shutdown, and President Biden has said he would approve the bill if it reached his desk.

After that, Whitehouse said they should be able to move forward on the Supreme Court.