Somebody Hail the Chief!

At this crucial time in the history of jurisprudence, it is not a good sign that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States appears to be missing in action. The Court announces that it will take up arguments and deliberation on the Heath Care Reform legislation that has garnered mixed results in the lower courts. Perhaps a watershed case in connection with the 2012 Presidential Election. The same day, two Justices of the Court not known for their "discretion" slip out and attend a fund raising dinner for an organization lobbying against the law[and incidentally are paid generous speaker fees]. Now we can all accept that the Supreme Court is an elite club. And these guys were just out doing their usual grifting for pocket money from fat cat organizations supporting corporate interests. The engagement was probably pre-booked.

But even elite clubs are supposed to have some basic rules of decorum and behavior. Since it is the highest court of the land, it is not unreasonable that the Judicial Code of Ethics might be expected to apply, at a minimum, to the Justices of the club. After all, every other judge in the land is subject to those basic rules of behavior. They are really not that hard to follow either. Honest! Most people heard them at home when they were children: Don’t lie, cheat or steal! That can be expanded to: don’t solicit or accept bribes from parties in interest or regarding issues that you have to sit and decide, supposedly as an impartial judge. That would not seem too onerous.

HOWEVER, consider the following news report:
A few hours after the Supreme Court justices met last Thursday, November 10, to consider hearing challenges to the national health care overhaul, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were the honored speakers at a fundraiser for a conservative legal group that was sponsored in part by health care reform opponents involved in the litigation.

For goodness sakes, where is the club President Roberts? Is he sleeping on the job? Has he lost the cell phone numbers of Thomas and Scalia? Didn’t he warn them that they should keep a low profile and not be “out on the take” in the run up to perhaps the biggest decision the Court has to make since the decision to sell out the country to corporations in the Citizen’s United decision? Now it is not secret how Scalia will vote. Thomas only has to hope that Antonin and Ginny can agree on what will be most profitable personally for the Thomas family so he can be told how to vote. He has no time to bother with looking up the law and stuff like that, he never understood too much of it anyway. He was more inclined to take the word of “cute” female law clerks that laughed at his raunchy and lame jokes.

But it is going to be difficult at club meetings when you have a couple of rogue members who choose to completely disregard the ethical rules and do so in public meetings. The old wink and nod ratio decidendi of be as corrupt as you want as long as you do it in private parties seems to have slipped the minds of Antonin and Clarence. Or perhaps they have decided that the power elite have reached total victory and they simply don’t care about appearances any more. In any event, someone should put in a call to the Chief Justice to see if he cannot round up the boys and give them a stern finger shaking and talking to. [p.s., if they offer to split their take with him…he should decline]