The appearance of all six conservative Supreme Court justices — and only the conservatives — at a White House black tie dinner for Britain’s King Charles III is raising eyebrows within the legal community. According to MS NOW legal analyst Lisa Rubin, all six justices nominated by Republican presidents attended the Tuesday night event. “None of the three justices nominated by Democratic presidents were there, invited or not,” Rubin reported. The timing is particularly striking because the dinner occurred just hours before the court released a 6-3 decision significantly weakening the Voting Rights Act, and on the eve of oral arguments about the legality of the administration ending temporary protected status for Syrian and Haitian immigrants. Historically, state dinners feature only a single Supreme Court justice. During Trump’s first state dinner in 2018, Chief Justice John Roberts and his wife were the sole court representatives invited. Georgetown Law professor Steve Vladeck warned that the symbolism of the event undermines public trust. “The problem here is … that these six justices — and only these six — were there. It does nothing to disabuse the appearance that the court is playing partisan political favorites, an impression this court should be invested in avoiding,” Vladeck told MS NOW.
The Supreme Court’s own code of conduct — adopted in 2023 to counter the “misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules” — appears to prohibit such conduct. The code mandates that justices “act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary” and should not “knowingly convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the Justice,” Rubin noted.
The code also specifically warns against participation in “extrajudicial activities” that “reflect adversely on the justice’s impartiality.”
However, critics were quick to point out a glaring weakness: the ethics code contains no enforcement mechanism, leaving the justices to police themselves.
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