After Tuesday’s election, the outlook for court reform in 2027 and beyond is coming into view.

The bulk of Fix the Court’s work remains focused on exposing malfeasance in the federal judiciary and making the case for why the most powerful, least accountable part of our government needs fixing.

But in the last two days, not to mention during the several years before that, incoming House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jamie Raskin and incoming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse have indicated a commitment to making the federal courts more open and accountable. We expect them to follow through.

In that vein, Fix the Court is releasing our priorities for the next Congress.

Read our agenda here.

If you don’t have time to read it all, here’s a summary:

Investigations

Don’t forget the lower courts! Whether it’s Judge Ross in Georgia (sex in chambers) or Judge Brown in Texas (abandoned her job) or several others who have mistreated their law clerks, there’s much work to do to ensure that the 2,400 judges who comprise the lower courts are held to the highest ethical standards.

Legislation

There are several bills with bipartisan support that we believe can cross the finish line in 2027 or 2028. That includes:

Tier One legislation:
— the Judiciary Accountability Act to improve workplace conduct protections in the third branch
— the JUDGES Act to add 65-70 lower court judgeships to relieve ballooning caseloads
— the Open Courts Act to modernize the judiciary’s electronic case management system and make access to court records free (rising to $0.12/page in Jan.)

Tier Two legislation:
— the Judicial Conduct and Disability Reform Act to modernize the judicial misconduct process
— the High Court Gift Ban Act to ban gift acceptance by judges and justices
— a stock market and prediction market ban (must be a real ban)

Working to bring to the forefront: reform-related riders in House and Senate appropriations bills, so, say, $10 million of the branch’s non-security funding would be withheld until the Judicial Conference implements stronger workplace conduct protections

Most likely bill to advance through the Judiciary Committees that we’ve yet to mention: the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act, a bill that comprises many key reforms that we helped craft

Always willing to keep working on, though we’d expect President Trump to veto: any bill listed here introduced during the 119th Congress that Fix the Court endorsed, including ones on SCOTUS term limits, enforceable SCOTUS ethics, a judiciary IG, shedding light on the shadow docket and ending single-judge divisions

Perpetual priority: judicial security legislation, which will always be top of mind given the threats