The House Appropriations Committee today is voting on the judiciary’s FY23 budget (UPDATE: it passed), which includes a report that is just totally done with the third branch’s B.S.

In the report, which articulates the majority’s recommendations on how to use the money they’re appropriating, the House Democrats call for (new items this year in bold):

— A commitment from judges to stop lying when they lobby their members of Congress on pending legislation (“Judiciary Materials,” p. 52). You’ll recall this on free PACER and the time the judiciary said their anti-harassment rules were “better” than a federal law (Title VII).

— A request for the judiciary to work productively on both their GAO audits (“Oversight over the Office of Judicial Integrity,” p. 52). One GAO audit, on the judiciary’s costly procurement, has been ongoing for more than a year. The other, on the (in)adequacy of the judiciary’s response to sexual harassment and other misconduct, is effectively being announced in this report.

— A nationwide workplace climate survey (“Workplace Misconduct Report,” p. 53). The D.C. Circuit did one and the Ninth Circuit did one, but the other 11 circuits must do one, too, and it’s doubtful it’ll happen without congressional pressure.

— A report to Congress on all JC&D orders that “result in a finding of misconduct for any judge no later than 30 days after an order” comes down, as well as the creation of a single, centralized webpage of all such orders (p. 48). Not difficult.

Those were for lower court judges. Here’s what they have for SCOTUS:

— 100% funding of SCOTUS’s new security requests (p. 49). SCOTUS initially wanted about $5 million for new staff and $4.2 million for building upgrades. Now they want another $6.8 million for staff and equipment and $2.8 million for building upgrades, and they’re getting all $18.8 million. It’s unclear, of course, since they don’t tell us, how much of that is for the unscalable fence, guns, cameras on the court (of which they ironically have several) or any other line item, for that matter.

— Cameras in the Supreme Court, or at least the continuation of live audio (p. 49).

— A Supreme Court code of conduct, written and adopted by the justices (p. 49), which seems to get more and more relevant with each passing year.

Committee member and leader on workplace conduct issues Rep. Norma Torres has more here.