by Peter Jensen When I entered the world of professional journalism more than four decades ago, I quickly discovered that certain colleagues felt so strongly about the mere appearance of political bias that they abstained from voting. This is not true of most reporters, but you can ...
by Jackie Calmes It’s that time of year when the life-tenured denizens of America’s imperial court, otherwise known as the Supreme Court, come down from their bench to mix with the masses. Just kidding. The justices limit their appearances to friendly audiences, to elite folks ...
by Stephen L. Carter I’d never heard of Sandra Day O’Connor when the news broke that she was President Ronald Reagan’s likely nominee for the new vacancy on the Supreme Court. This was in 1981, toward the end of my term as a law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, and a bunch ...
by Noah Feldman It’s great that the U.S. Supreme Court promulgated a code of conduct for the justices. It should help put an end to the narrative that the court has been tone deaf to criticism of its ethical lapses. That said, the code will change nothing substantive about the way ...
by Chad Flanders Supreme Court oral arguments have gotten too long. How do I know this? It used to be that during one of my longer morning runs, I could listen to an entire Supreme Court oral argument. Now, that’s getting harder and harder to do. I end my run, and the argument is ...
Last week, the U.S. Senate Judiciary committee passed the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act of 2023. The fact the bill passed out of committee is considered a huge success, but commentators speculate it’s unlikely to go any further. Democrats hail the bill as a ...