Fix the Court executive director Gabe Roth will testify about the deficiencies in judicial ethics laws at a House Judiciary Courts Subcommittee hearing tomorrow, April 27, at 2:00 p.m. in Rayburn 2141.

In his statement (oral | written), Roth will urge lawmakers to compel the Supreme Court to adopt a code of conduct and expand the recusal statute to make it clear that the justices’ disregard for basic ethics constraints, as well as their participation in cases in which they have clear bias, imperils the integrity of the institution.

FTC hopes the hearing will lay the foundation for advancement of the 21st Century Courts Act, the Supreme Court Ethics Act or some combination thereof.

Who: FTC Executive Director Gabe Roth (at right testifying in 2019)
NYU Law Prof. Stephen Gillers
Schaerr Jaffe Partner Mark Paoletta
CREW Senior VP and Chief Counsel Donald Sherman
What: Hearing on “Building Confidence in the Supreme Court Through Ethics and Recusal Reforms” in House Judiciary’s Courts Subcommittee
Where: 2141 Rayburn House Office Building and at this link
When: 2:00 p.m. ET on Wed., April 27

Also tomorrow (around 12:15 p.m. here) the House will vote on final passage of the Senate version of the Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act.

The bill, which would require judges and justices to post their financial disclosures online and file reports after stock transactions, came as a response to a 2021 Wall Street Journal-Free Law Project investigation that revealed a rampant culture of disregard for financial conflicts in the judiciary.

FTC endorsed the bill when it was introduced last year and worked to ensure bankruptcy and magistrate judges were included in the final version.