A group of judicial advocacy groups is asking lawmakers in Congress to formulate more effective transparency rules for the spouses of federal judges to “account for potential judicial conflicts of interest.”
That’s according to a letter sent to lawmakers this week, in which the groups say that language should be inserted into existing ethics law that would apply to federal judges whose spouses work in “legal services; strategic or legal advice related to litigation, lobbying, or business activities; lobbying or public relations services; or testimony as an expert witness.”
The four organizations include Fix the Court, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Free Law Project, and the Project On Government Oversight. They say that if a value of service is greater than $5,000 for the spouse of a judge’s work, they must disclose the payer and compensation, according to the draft language for the legislation.
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“We, the undersigned organizations, write to encourage you to draft legislation that will close a disclosure loophole in the judiciary and ensure that judges, justices, and the American people can more fully appreciate and account for potential judicial conflicts of interest,” the watchdog groups wrote, citing a Politico report which noted potential conflicts of interests regarding the professional work of Supreme Court justices’ spouses.
Current rules request judges and justices to disclose their spouses’ career work, but not the information of their clients or any details about compensation.
The proposal comes as justices throughout the years have been subjects of news reports about potential ethical violations, including Chief Justice John Roberts‘s wife Jane Roberts, who works as a partner at the legal recruiting firm, Macrae, where she operates in negotiating jobs for high-profile attorneys at major firms.
Gabe Roth, founder of Fix the Court, told the Washington Examiner that while high court justices have been the subject of headlines over potential conflicts of interest, the proposal also aims to hold the other 1,400 federal judges of lower courts, and their spouses, to some form of greater accountability.
Roth cited D.C. Circuit Judge Nina Pillard, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, as an example, referring to reports that she has sat on cases in which her husband, David Cole, the ACLU’s national legal director, has publicly supported a specific outcome.
While the FLP and the POGO are touted for being nonpartisan judicial interest groups with the purpose of providing greater transparency on the judicial branch, FTC has received past financial support from New Venture Fund, a nonprofit organization that has been characterized as a left-leaning, “dark money outfit,” according to Influencewatch.org.
POGO and CREW — which was previously run by liberal David Brock — have also received funding from left-of-center organizations, the website shows, while FLP is most known for providing members of the public access to free online court records via Courtlistener.com.
But the FTC founder stopped short of making calls for the publication of a judge or justice’s specific recusal list, saying it was “kind of a surprise” when the Senate Judiciary Committee published then-Judge Amy Coney Barrett‘s recusal list during her nomination process in 2020.
“I’m sure there will be critics of this proposal,” Roth said, adding that he’s “sort of preempting them by saying, we could have [asked for] all the recusal lists, but instead of saying that … just let us know if you as a judge are getting rich off of a client that your spouse happens to have.”
Barrett was also a subject in the recent Politico report about her husband Jesse Barrett’s decision to open a Washington, D.C., office for his Indiana law firm shortly after she was appointed by former President Donald Trump.
And Roth said he is very much in favor of applying the proposal indiscriminately, referencing the husband of the latest Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Dr. Patrick Jackson, who is known for consulting over medical malpractice cases.
But some opponents of the measure, such as the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, have raised concerns that the scope of the proposal could essentially cause the roughly 1,400 spouses to be blocked from practicing law because the disclosure requirements could clash against an attorney’s commitment of confidentiality to his or her client.
“The proposed reform would have the practical effect of making judicial spouses across the country unable to practice law, but … dark money co-signers clearly have their sights set on the Supreme Court — with proposals that conveniently do not apply to the (Democrat-controlled) Congress and executive branch,” JCN President Carrie Severino wrote to Washington Examiner.
The letter is addressed to members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committee chairs and ranking members and comes at a time when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has pushed for judiciary transparency reforms as Congress weighs proposals to ban stock trades for lawmakers and their spouses.
If Congress votes on legislation to ban stock trading, Pelosi said in January, it should include the nine Supreme Court justices. “I don’t think the court should be let off the hook,” Pelosi said.
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President Joe Biden has already made strides this year to further transparency on trades of stocks and other securities conducted by federal judges. In May, the president signed into law the Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act, requiring federal judges to periodically disclose certain transactions and publish financial disclosure reports while making records available online.
The Washington Examiner contacted the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking members Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) for a response.
