Yet another example of the corrupt and compromised nature of the current, highly partisan, right-wing stacked court. Just as the GOP is the willing servant of corporations and the wealthy, it is becoming increasingly clear that the GOP-stacked supreme court is equally willing to bend over backward to serve the interests of the wealthy and large corporations. The need for reform grows ever more urgent!!

"Why are these conflicts allowed?" Corporate giving to SCOTUS-linked group sparks blowback | Salon.com https://www.salon.com/2023/01/01/why-are-these-conflicts-allowed-corporate-giving-to-scotus-linked-group-sparks-blowback_partner/

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#Pay2Play
#CorruptSupremeCourt
#ReformSupremeCourt

"Alarm and concern were expressed Saturday in response to new reporting about a charitable group with close ties to the U.S. Supreme Court that has been soliciting and accepting donations from corporate interests and far-right activists with cases before the court.

The New York Times exposé focused on the activities and fundraising of the Supreme Court Historical Society, a nonprofit that claims its mission is "dedicated to the collection and preservation" of the court's history.

While the group refused to disclose its donors to the Times, reporters from the newspaper determined that much of the funding came from powerful companies like Chevron, Goldman Sachs, Time Warner and Facebook as well as anti-abortion activists like the Rev. Rob Schenck.

According to the newspaper:

The society has raised more than $23 million over the last two decades. Because of its nonprofit status, it does not have to publicly disclose its donors — and declined when asked to do so. But The New York Times was able to identify the sources behind more than $10.7 million raised since 2003, the first year for which relevant records were available.

At least $6.4 million — or 60 percent — came from corporations, special interest groups, or lawyers and firms that argued cases before the court, according to an analysis of archived historical society newsletters and publicly available records that detail grants given to the society by foundations. Of that, at least $4.7 million came from individuals or entities in years when they had a pending interest in a federal court case on appeal or at the high court, records show.

In the case of Chevron, the oil giant actively gave to the society even as it had a pending climate litigation working its way through the court.

In response to the new revelations, public interest attorney Steven Donzinger, who was himself targeted by Chevron for his work aimed at holding the company to account for its polluting activities in Ecuador, said the implications were "horrifying."

"Why are these conflicts allowed?" asked Donzinger.

Others quoted by the Times said the effort by people like Schenck, who admits to using the charitable group as a way to get other anti-abortion activists closer to the justices, creates a clear conflict of interest.

Charles Fried, a Harvard Law professor who once served as solicitor general in the Reagan administration and counts himself a donor to the Historical Society, told the newspaper he was so "horrified" by Schenck's behavior that he may no longer give.

"It's disgusting," Fried said. "Many of the people who contribute have the same reasons I do. You go to a cocktail party and support a good cause. But it turns out that for some people it's not that innocent."

While the Times notes that the Historical Society is "ostensibly independent of the judicial branch of government," the reality is that "the two are inextricably intertwined," with court justices serving as chair of the board and hosting gala events where exclusive access is reportedly part of the allure.

The left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said the reporting raises "significant questions" about the group which has "raked in millions — a significant chunk of it from groups with cases before the Court" over the last two decades.

Fix the Court, which acts as a watchdog organization for the Supreme Court, said the justification for the Historical Society's existence just doesn't hold water.

Gabe Roth, the group's executive director, told the Times that if money was an issue for funding such a project it would be the best solution — one free of ethical concerns — for Congress to simply appropriate the money needed to maintain the history of the Supreme Court."

The Supreme Court has been perverted by the GOP to undemocratically enact right-wing policies outside of the elected branches. It's a right-wing end-run around democracy!

There is a path to save the Supreme Court from itself
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/11/supreme-court-reform-expansion-term-limits-ethics/

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#PartisanSupremeCourt
#ReformSupremeCourt
#GOPHatesDemocracy

"The Supreme Court’s right-wing majority has been on a tear lately...several right-wing justices seriously considered adopting a once-fringe legal theory that could upend how state courts oversee elections.
...
Fortunately, there is no shortage of ideas to return sanity to the court. And there has never been a better time to advance them to the public.

As Maya Wiley, head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, explains, “The Supreme Court is now far out of step with the American mainstream and has, as a result, become the best organizer of its own court reform campaign.” Given the many ongoing scandals, such as leaked opinions and Justice Clarence Thomas’s refusal to recuse himself in cases involving his wife’s activism after the 2020 election, Wiley notes, “More Americans believe term limits, transparency and ethics reform are good ideas.”

The stakes couldn’t be higher. The court’s pattern of self-inflicted wounds erodes its credibility and undermines its stature. As the progressive Brennan Center for Justice put it, “The lack of structural democratic accountability is much of the reason why we ended up with a Court so out of step with the public and with mainstream legal thought. But it could also spell a crisis for the Court’s own legitimacy, spurring new attention to the broken system that gave us today’s radical supermajority and garnering momentum for efforts at Court reform."
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Eliminate lifetime tenure for justices
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Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan pro-democracy group, tells me that Supreme Court term limits have gained wide support.
...
Expand the court
A recent Marquette University Law School national poll showed that 51 percent of Americans (including 72 percent of Democrats) favored expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court. And unlike term limits, which might require a constitutional amendment to achieve, there is no dispute that Congress has the power to enlarge the court.

The number of seats on the high court is not set in stone. It was set at nine when the nation had nine circuits (there are now 13). And Republicans effectively reduced the number to eight when they refused to consider President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the court in March 2016.

Members of the presidential commission on the Supreme Court were candid about this reform: Court expansion would be the most effective means to dilute the influence of the current right-wing majority.
...
Democracy itself has been threatened by politically compromised justices acting far outside the bounds of neutral referees. The commission reports:

"[Critics] maintain that the Supreme Court has been complicit in and partially responsible for the “degradation of American democracy” writ large. On this view, the Court has whittled away the Voting Rights Act and other cornerstones of democracy, and affirmed state laws and practices that restrict voting and disenfranchise certain constituencies, such as people of color, the poor, and the young. This has contributed to circumstances that threaten to give outsize power over the future of the presidency and therefore the Court to entrench that power. . . .
Antidemocratic developments risk entrenching the judicial philosophy of the current Court majority for generations, while advantaging one political party.
For those who say expansion would politicize the court, remember that the court has already been politicized.
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Implement ethics rules for justices
Ethical guardrails already exist for federal courts in the form of the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges, as Glenn Fine explains in the Atlantic. This includes “conduct both on and off the bench, including requirements that judges act at all times to promote public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” But the Supreme Court’s adherence to the code has no means of oversight or enforcement.

Here is where the Supreme Court’s cry for “independence” is most self-serving. Congress is “independent," but it has ethics rules and an enforcement mechanism. Same goes for the executive branch
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Consider Fine’s ingenious suggestion: “The judiciary as a whole should be subject to inspector-general oversight
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The path forward
None of these reforms is radical. The Brennan Center observes: “The U.S. Supreme Court is an international outlier in many respects when compared to the high courts of other countries, including how much authority justices wield — and for how long.” Moreover, the public has never been so engaged on the issue, as the reaction to the court’s decision to overturn abortion rights has shown...."