By Gabe Roth, FTC executive director

Federal judicial security update:
One of my first thoughts after the Comey indictment came down was about the protection of the two judges assigned to the case and how a government shutdown might impact that. Thankfully, any gaps-in-coverage fears are unlikely to be realized.

According to a U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson I asked about this on Friday: “During a shutdown, all law enforcement members are excepted and must work no matter what. The vast majority of admin[instrative staff] will be furloughed, but no deputies will be. All details, operations, and routine services we may do will continue to be done by the deputies.” So that’s positive.

Also on this front, I was recently reminded that the budget of the Capitol Police ($807 million) is greater than the court security budget for federal judges ($750 million), despite the fact that there are nearly 4.5 times more judges than there are lawmakers and hundreds more buildings (courthouses) and residences that house them. This makes some sense in light of Jan. 6 but the judges’ number is still way under what it should be; I’m partial to the $892 million House Approps passed earlier this month.

In the meantime I believe $50 million should be added to the short-term CR — that’s what FTC called for in May and what Senate Dems included in Section 145 of their (DOA) version earlier this month.

State judicial security update:
FTC this summer identified three states that are permitting, if not requiring, judges to put their residential addresses on their disclosures. On Sept. 17 we received the following note from the court administrator of one of the states, Nebraska: “I have taken this issue to the Supreme Court and we have worked to address the issue so Judges will not put their residence on the financial disclosure forms.” It’s another Fix the Court victory.

SCOTUS watch — recusals:
During her Thursday appearance at the SCOTUSblog Summit, Justice Barrett talked about why she doesn’t explain her recusals, giving a thoughtful, yet unconvincing, answer.

As I write in this post, it’s my belief that a justice taking the extra step to write out which section of the statute a recusal based on is a worthwhile practice — one that helps ensure the justices are periodically flexing their ethical muscles.

SCOTUS watch — book tours:
Some folks didn’t love our “partisan bent of the justices’ book tours” release earlier this month (“it was premature,” “the ratings were a tad off,” etc.). The point I was trying to make, with some empirical backing, is that the justices can and should do more to seek out audiences, venues and event moderators that aren’t on their “team.” With the Sotomayor, Barrett and Jackson tours continuing, and the Kavanaugh and Alito tours forthcoming, the justices should be held to account in this realm.

Speaking of, FTC’s Manny Marotta recently identified 85 justice events since Jan. 1, 2024, that we believe should’ve been video-recorded but weren’t. It’s our view that any time a justice appears before a public audience — whether in a law school auditorium, a U.S. embassy abroad or a circuit-wide judicial conference — the event should be captured on tape.

Finally here, the justices appear to be setting a record for the most appearances ever in a year, at least since we started tracking them in 2020.

“Conflict U.” update:
Over the summer, in a report we called “Conflict U.,” we identified 24 federal judges with part-time teaching jobs at law schools who have failed to recuse themselves in more than six dozen cases involving the schools’ parent universities. To us, it’s an obvious conflict: if you’re a paid adjunct at OSU Law, you should recuse from OSU cases.

Last week, we found that several judges are, in fact, recusing in cases involving the parent universities of the law schools where they teach.

My staff is double-checking the list, and we’ll publish it on FixTheCourt.com later this week. Bottom line is there should be a bright-line rule requiring recusal in such instances, and we’ve reached out to the JCUS Codes of Conduct Committee to ask them to back us up here (no response of yet).