Senate Judiciary Committee Promises Supreme Court Ethics Hearing

WASHINGTON — Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday promised a hearing looking into the Supreme Court’s ethical standards and urged Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to investigate Justice Clarence Thomas’s undisclosed acceptance of gifts and luxurious excursions from a wealthy businessman and Republican donor.

In a letter to the chief justice, Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the committee, joined the 10 other Democratic senators on the panel in writing that if the court did not act in response to an investigation by ProPublica into Justice Thomas’s relationship with Harlan Crow, a Texas real estate billionaire, the committee would consider drafting legislation clarifying the court’s ethics rules.

“But you do not need to wait for Congress to act to undertake your own investigation into the reported conduct and to ensure that it cannot happen again,” the letter said.

In the letter, the senators said the conduct of Justice Thomas “is plainly inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any person in a position of public trust.”

After the report by ProPublica, Justice Thomas said he had been advised in the past that he need not report such gifts from personal friends.

Democrats in Congress have tried for years to persuade the court to, at a minimum, adopt the ethics rules that the rest of the federal judiciary follows, and they have accused the court of arrogance in dismissing the criticism from the Capitol. After other accusations that wealthy Republicans had gained access to the justice through social contacts, and the leak of a Supreme Court decision last year, Mr. Durbin had raised the possibility of a Senate inquiry but none had been planned before the latest disclosures by the news organization.

Democrats have said the court should impose a new code of conduct on itself, establish new standards for recusal from cases and establish financial disclosure rules in line with those that members of Congress must follow.

“The Senate Judiciary Committee, which has legislative jurisdiction over federal courts and judges, has a role to play in ensuring that the nation’s highest court does not have the federal judiciary’s lowest ethical standards,” said the letter from the Democrats. “You have a role to play as well, both in investigating how such conduct could take place at the court under your watch, and in ensuring that such conduct does not happen again. We urge you to immediately open such an investigation and take all needed action to prevent further misconduct.”

No date was immediately announced for the planned hearing.

Citing its status as a separate branch of government, the Supreme Court has in the past insisted it is capable of policing itself.

Congress controls funding for the court, and could conceivably withhold financing if it felt the court was not responsive to its demands. But that would require the approval of both the House and Senate, and House Republicans are not likely to accept such action against the court given its current conservative majority.