Fix the Court applauds the reintroduction of the Supreme Court Ethics Act, a bill led by Sen. Chris Murphy with 14 cosponsors that would require the justices to write a more exacting code of conduct and create other protocols to ensure they abide by stricter ethical guidelines.

One of the criticisms of the ethics code the justices released in 2023 was that its language contained looser ethical requirements than those that already existed under federal law.

In other words, though the federal recusal statute (28 U.S.C. §455) states that a justice “shall” — meaning they must — “disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” the 2023 code (p. 2) says a justice “should” — meaning it’s discretionary — “disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the Justice’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

That shouldn’t fly. That’s why the language in Sen. Murphy’s bill, stating that the justices “shall issue a code of conduct that applies to each justice of the Supreme Court and at minimum, incorporates the requirements under Section 455,” is so important.

In prior versions, the Judicial Conference was charged with writing an ethics code for the justices. Though the sentiment is reasonable, we have it on good authority that under no circumstances would the lower court judges who sit on the Conference dare complete the task, even if it were law.

Additionally, the bill would require the appointment of a Supreme Court Ethics Investigations Counsel who would receive complaints from the public about potential ethical violations, conduct investigations based on that information and issue annual reports describing any remedial action taken in light of the complaints.

Finally, it would require the justices to publicly disclose their reasoning when they recuse and when they deny a motion to recuse.

Currently, only two justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, give explanations when they disqualify themselves in a case or petition.