Supreme Court ethics v. pride, prejudice and political movers and shakers
The annual cascade of Supreme Court decisions this week will make lots of headlines, but polls show that Americans of all political stripes are increasingly troubled by the lack of a code of ethics for the high court.
Chief Justice John Roberts has more than once said the court is working on an ethics code for itself, but so far, crickets.
Meanwhile, investigative reporters are finding that Supreme Court conduct is rich ground to plow. Last week, ProPublica reported that Justice Samuel Alito failed to disclose that he had enjoyed an all-expenses-paid, high-end fishing trip to Alaska, complete with private jet travel, courtesy of hedge fund titan Paul Singer, a major Republican donor, who has been involved in 10 appeals to the Supreme Court.
Instead of responding to ProPublica's written questions, Alito did something no justice before him has done. He defended his conduct in an op-ed published on the editorial page of the conservative-friendly . In explaining why he did not recuse himself from a case in which Singer had ended up with a $2.4 billion windfall,
