Supreme Court's 'embarrassing' attempt to address major ethics issue astounds legal expert

Legal expert Chris Geidner tore into the Supreme Court on his Law Dork blog for making an "embarrassing" roundabout ethics rule change that is meant to look like they're preventing conflicts of interest with individual stock ownership — while in fact allowing the two justices who trade individual stocks to keep doing so.

"Did the justices agree to divest from individual stock ownership — which would be the cleanest, most ethical, and easiest step, especially given that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito are the only two justices who currently own individual stocks? Of course not," chided Geidner. "The Chief Justice of the United States will literally change the rules of the Supreme Court of the United States instead of divesting in individual stocks. Really."

This is a ludicrous move, wrote Geidner, and it's designed to work with a new piece of software for the court to make "automated recusal checks."

"The Supreme Court of the United States spent time and money to create new software to run conflicts checks, and part of that includes checks relating to individual stocks owned by justices," wrote Geidner. "Because two justices own stocks — Roberts refuses to divest and Alito is apparently eagerly day-trading — the Supreme Court had to spend time and money in the development of this new system to integrate stock ownership conflict checks. And now, starting in March, every party going to the Supreme Court is going to need to go along with this CNBC-style ticker-tape rule because of their intransigence."

These issues have popped up before, Geidner noted, as Alito had to recuse from a case that involved an oil and gas company he owned stock in.

Gabe Roth, founder of Fix the Court, said in response to the change, “Public service also demands public input, and it’s a bit ridiculous that the Court can simply release new rules without a notice-and-comment period or opportunity for public views. It’s yet another example of the Court acting exceptionally in all the wrong ways.“

All of this comes as Congress has wrestled for years with a debate about banning senators and representatives from trading individual stocks, a common practice that has led to numerous appearances of corruption — like a Pennsylvania Republican who bought stock in AI companies while pushing data center construction in his district.