(TargetLiberty.org) – On Tuesday the Associated Press published a report in which they detailed how Supreme Court Justices have been visiting colleges to attend events that also included many donors and elected officials. As the report argued there have been opportunities for the justices to have luxury experiences in places like Hawaii and Europe in exchange for only some light teaching.
The report noted that the visits were predominantly made across ideological lines, and were predominantly focused on the left wing of the country’s highest court. According to one of the accusations, Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s staff had been pushing colleges to purchase multiple copies of her books when she was set to travel to their facilities.
Justices have frequently attended different speaking engagements and events at universities. However, following the increased questioning of the Supreme Court’s lack of concrete ethics requirements, all of these trips have now come under scrutiny.
Senate Democrats have also been pushing for an ethics bill for the Supreme Court to be introduced. Their efforts first started following ProPublica’s reports about the luxury trips and gifts accepted by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito from GOP megadonors. The Justices failed to disclose these trips for years.
The AP investigation outlined how Sotomayor’s aide had been pressing colleges and libraries to purchase multiple copies, claiming that the number of books that they had ordered was not enough as families might want to purchase multiple copies.
A professor of law emeritus at Northwestern University, Steven Lubet argued that there was nothing wrong with taking book royalties but that pushing staff was inappropriate.
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