By: The Editorial Board – wsj.com – September 3, 2024

The Justice gives encouragement to partisans who want to politicize the Supreme Court.

She cautioned that she was discussing this as a “general matter,” not endorsing any specific plan: “I’m not going to get into commenting on particular policy proposals, but from my perspective I don’t have any problem with an enforceable code.” This is cagey, and we’d suggest that Justice Jackson look more closely at the political pressure her endorsement may help to unleash.

One difference between the High Court and the lower courts is that there are only nine Justices. Any unnecessary recusal on the Supreme Court can end up being effectively a vote against one of the parties. Winning the case means convincing at least five Justices. A shorthanded Court can split 4-4, which leaves a lower-court ruling in place but without any definitive settlement.

The Supreme Court is also enumerated in the Constitution, and it isn’t a creature of Congress. It would implicate the separation of powers for lawmakers to attempt to impose a detailed set of ethics and recusal rules on the Justices from the outside, as Democrats have been demanding.

Another difference is that the High Court is a frequent target of political attacks, and an “enforceable” ethics code would quickly be turned into another instrument of partisan warfare that would harm the independence of the Court. Justice Jackson reported on a disclosure form this summer that the singer Beyonce gave her four concert tickets worth $3,711.84. Unless Beyonce is coming before the Supreme Court for some reason, it’s hard to fathom how this poses any real ethical conflict.

Yet the same is true of gifts reported by the conservative Justices, which hasn’t stopped the smear campaigns. The newest Justice may think she’s pleasing Democrats and the press on ethics, but we doubt she’d like the result.

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Source: Justice Jackson’s ‘Enforceable’ Ethics Code – WSJ