Upon hearing news that President-elect Donald Trump, according to his spokesman, sold his entire stock portfolio over the summer, Fix the Court executive director Gabe Roth released the following statement:

Is there any reason Justices Roberts, Breyer and Alito can’t do same? These three collectively hold millions of dollars in companies like Time Warner, Cisco and Johnson & Johnson that have often have cases come before the Supreme Court, both as litigants and amici.

That these three justices – and not their five colleagues, by the way – continue to own individual stocks means dozens of unnecessary recusals every year at the cert. and merits stages. These recusals make it that much harder for certain litigants to obtain the fourth cert. vote necessary to have their cases heard by the justices – and that much hard to win should their cases reach the merits stage.