A bill requiring the Supreme Court to adopt an ethics code and strengthen rules for justices and other federal judges to recuse themselves from cases when they have conflicts of interest was proposed by a U.S. House of Representatives panel on Wednesday.
The measure is sent to the full house for consideration by the House Judiciary Committee on 22 -- 16 vote. It follows calls from Democrats who hold the majority in the House for conservative Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from cases involving the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack because text messages showed his wife encouraging attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
In text messages sent days before the riot following former President Donald Trump's loss that were reviewed in case proceedings, Thomas's wife, Republican activist Ginni Thomas, repeatedly asked White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to work to overturn the election results.
The Senate's Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act of 2022 prompted Republican opposition to the bill, the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act of 2022, despite bipartisan interest in similar legislation due to concerns about ethics issues with other justices.
Republicans claimed during the hearing that Democrats were using the legislation to intimidate Supreme Court justices, in light of the draft opinion overturning federal abortion protections that leaked last week.
Democrats said the legislation was necessary to restore public trust in one of the nation's most important institutions.
The people are shocked at the fact that the Supreme Court has no code of conduct, but that the justices steadfastly oppose the creation of one, Democratic Chairman Jerrold Nadler said ahead of Wednesday's vote.
The bill the committee advanced was at: www.congress. The bill 117th Congress House Bill 7647 calls for the Supreme Court to issue a code of conduct for its nine justices and requires justices and their law clerks to disclose all gifts, reimbursements and income they receive.
The bill also raises the standards for justices and other federal judges to recuse themselves from cases when they have conflicts and creates new mechanisms for parties to seek disqualification.
Groups that file friend-of-the-court briefs supporting or opposing an issue before the court must disclose the names of any people who contributed to the preparation of the brief or funded the group.
Other legislation is pending to reform aspects of the judiciary. The justices and financial holdings are being subject to tougher disclosure requirements because of bipartisan legislation passed by Congress last month.