https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/alito-lays-groundwork-to-scrap-court-financial-disclosure-rules?fbclid=IwAR3q6g2Bh315ItodFL5y0rF-pxnqur4RYVddijtvhVtKG5EIy648MboZeSA

Alito Lays Groundwork to Scrap Court Financial Disclosure Rules


It’s not surprising he’d have this opinion of lawmakers’ authority, or lack thereof. Judicial supremacy is having its moment, with the author of Dobbs among those leading the charge: Alito and his colleagues decide who gets health care and who can v**e, who lives or dies, where we can pray or carry a gun, whose v**es count and whose don’t. They strike down decades-old precedents and overturn the will of the people, as articulated by their representatives in Congress.

So while they’re at it, why not scrap the 1978 Ethics in Government Act requirement that the justices file annual financial disclosure reports available for public inspection? The reports are fairly modest in scope, requiring the justices to disclose little more than their outside teaching and book income, spousal place of work, reimbursed travel, and major debts and investments, and each category contains significant exceptions: spousal salary, vacations paid for by “friends” and home mortgages, for example, are all exempted from disclosure.

Some, including Alito, argue that the justices aren’t currently bound by the law. The nine, he said, “voluntarily follow [the] disclosure statutes that apply to lower-court judges and executive-branch officials,” implying it’s been out of the goodness of their hearts that they’ve complied to this point.

But with this shot across the bow, it appears that the Age of Marginal Accountability may soon yield to the Era of You Can’t Make Us.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/alito-lays-groundwork-to-scrap-court-financial-disclosure-rules?fbclid=IwAR3q6g2Bh315ItodFL5y0rF-pxnqur4RYVddijtvhVtKG5EIy648MboZeSA

Alito Lays Groundwork to Scrap Court Financial Disclosure Rules


It’s not surprising he’d have this opinion of lawmakers’ authority, or lack thereof. Judicial supremacy is having its moment, with the author of Dobbs among those leading the charge: Alito and his colleagues decide who gets health care and who can v**e, who lives or dies, where we can pray or carry a gun, whose v**es count and whose don’t. They strike down decades-old precedents and overturn the will of the people, as articulated by their representatives in Congress.

So while they’re at it, why not scrap the 1978 Ethics in Government Act requirement that the justices file annual financial disclosure reports available for public inspection? The reports are fairly modest in scope, requiring the justices to disclose little more than their outside teaching and book income, spousal place of work, reimbursed travel, and major debts and investments, and each category contains significant exceptions: spousal salary, vacations paid for by “friends” and home mortgages, for example, are all exempted from disclosure.

Some, including Alito, argue that the justices aren’t currently bound by the law. The nine, he said, “voluntarily follow [the] disclosure statutes that apply to lower-court judges and executive-branch officials,” implying it’s been out of the goodness of their hearts that they’ve complied to this point.

But with this shot across the bow, it appears that the Age of Marginal Accountability may soon yield to the Era of You Can’t Make Us.