Supreme Court Ethics Act

Key Points

• The bill requires the Supreme Court to write and adopt a formal code of conduct within one year of becoming law, something the Court has never had in its history.
• It creates a new Ethics Investigations Counsel appointed by the Court to take public complaints about justices and investigate possible ethics violations.
• Justices who step aside from a case, or who refuse to step aside when a party asks them to, must publicly explain their reasoning on the record.
• The ethics counsel must publish an annual public report listing complaints received and what steps were taken to investigate or resolve them.