The U.S. Supreme Court and Ethics Reform

We the People

National Constitution Center

News, News Commentary, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2023

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This summer, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation that would attempt to set ethics rules for the U.S. Supreme Court and a process to enforce them, including rules for transparency around recusals, gifts, and conflicts of interest. The bill, which still requires full Senate approval, is the latest in a series of proposals and attempts to reform or improve the Supreme Court in recent years. In this episode of We the People, we discuss various proposals to reform ethics rules surrounding the Supreme Court; how and whether these proposals could go into effect; and what the enforcement mechanisms could be. Law professors Daniel Hemel of NYU Law and Daniel Epps of Washington University School of Law join host Jeffrey Rosen. Resources: S.359 - Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act of 2023 (Sen. Whitehouse) S.325 - Supreme Court Ethics Act (Sen. Murphy) Daniel Epps and Ganesh Sitaraman, “The Future of Supreme Court Reform” (2021) Daniel Hemel, “Can Structural Changes Fix the Supreme Court?” (2021) Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org.  Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.   Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.  You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This summer, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation that would try to set ethics rules for the U.S. Supreme Court, and a process to enforce them.
0:08.0	The bill which still requires full Senate approval is the latest in a series of recent proposals involving Supreme Court
0:14.1	ethics reform.
0:17.0	Hello friends, I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National
0:21.8	Constitution Center and welcome to We The
0:23.8	The People weekly show of constitutional debate. The National Constitution Center is a
0:28.4	nonpartisan nonprofit chartered by Congress to increase awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people.
0:36.0	In this episode of We The People, we discuss ethics reform proposals for the Supreme Court,
0:41.0	including how they would work and whether they would raise constitutional
0:43.9	questions.
0:44.9	Joining me to discuss these important questions are two of America's leading experts in
0:48.5	constitutional law, Daniel Hemmel and Daniel Epps.
0:52.3	Daniel Hemmel is professor of law,
0:53.6	New York University School of Law.
0:55.6	His wide-ranging research explores topics in taxation,
0:58.5	intellectual property, administrative, and constitutional law.
1:01.7	He's published more than 50 scholarly articles and
1:03.7	essays including a 2021 piece can structural changes fix the Supreme Court.
1:09.2	Daniel, it's great to welcome you to We The People.
1:11.6	Thanks for having me on.
1:14.0	And Daniel Epps is Treman Professor of Law
1:16.2	at Washington University School of Law.
	...

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