Should Supreme Court justices hang out with extremely partisan figures? At a holiday party, for instance?
That’s what The New Abnormal political podcast host Andy Levy and Jay Willis, editor-in-chief of Balls & Strikes, explore in this episode.
“Most recently, some noise was made over Justice Kavanaugh attending a Christmas party thrown by Matt and Mercedes Schlapp, who are big Republican and conservative operatives, and the fact that Matt Gaetz and Steven Miller and people like that were there,” says Andy. “How big a deal is this really?”
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According to Willis, it’s complicated.
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“Supreme Court justices are the only article three federal judges who are not bound by any code of ethics. [A] normal person, who is not a lawyer, looks at Brett Kavanaugh hanging out with this absolute collection of like right-wing Trumpy freaks and thinks, ‘Well that’s not great, that makes me have some questions about Justice Brett Kavanaugh's ostensible impartiality,’ [but] legally, he’s just fine,” says Willis.
But! He adds, “The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that although it is, again, not subject to any binding code of ethics, that it doesn’t need to be bound by any code of ethics. And Chief Justice Roberts’ explanation for this is more or less, ‘Well, you can trust us, we’re Supreme Court justices, we know the right thing to do.’ So like to me it’s just sort of table stakes. Like of course at this point, Supreme Court justices should be bound by some sort of code that is like maybe when given the opportunity to hang out with Matt Gaetz, you pick a different Christmas party to go to that night.”
“That’s just good advice in general,” jokes Andy.
“This is less political and more like ‘Do you want to have a good time or not?’ laughs Willis.
However, he adds, even if we did impose social ethics on the justices, he doesn’t see a rule that blocks justices from schmoozing at Christmas parties fixing the court’s bigger issues, the biggest being public trust.
He explains to Andy what can be done instead that could have an impact, and whether or not Justice Amy Coney Barrett is going to forever vote as awfully as the left thinks she will.
Plus! TNA Co-host Danielle Moodie interviews Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate and author of Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America, who speaks to Democrats’ biggest blind spot when it comes to white women and abortion.
Listen to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, and Stitcher.
