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On May 15, 2018, President Trump nominated Ryan Nelson to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. If confirmed, Nelson will replace JudgeN. Randy Smith, who is scheduled to assume senior status on August 11, 2018.

Based on our review of Nelson’s record, Alliance for Justice opposes his nomination to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

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In 2005, President George W. Bush’s nominee, John Roberts, became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Five years later, just over one quarter of the country (27%) disapproved of him. By last year, that disapproval number had risen to nearly half the nation: 46%.

Since 2021, Gallup reports, the Supreme Court’s disapproval rating has consistently remained in the mid to upper 50s—a roughly ten-point increase compared to the previous decade. The majority of Americans have an apparent growing dissatisfaction with a court that wields ultimate authority while becoming increasingly secretive and activist on some of the nation’s most consequential issues.

While the Supreme Court’s job is not to make decisions based on popularity contests, it relies on the other two branches of the federal government to enforce its rulings. And when the Supreme Court’s credibility falls into question, some warn, our institutions may be at risk.

In October, Bloomberg Opinion’s Noah Feldman warned the Supreme Court’s “legitimacy crisis is getting worse.”

READ MORE: ‘Two Things Could Be True’: White House Reveals Why Hunter Pardon Might Not Have Happened

“Democrats’ faith in the court began to fail after the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, then went into freefall over the last couple of years,” Feldman wrote. “They worry the justices aren’t sufficiently ethical. They deplore the eagerness of the court’s conservative majority to overturn 50 years of precedent on issues like abortion and affirmative action. They are appalled at the court’s defiance of originalism — the idea that Constitutional law should rest on the document’s original meaning — to grant criminal immunity to former President Donald Trump for official acts while president.”

Nearly two years ago the Alliance for Justice (AFJ), a progressive coalition of nearly 140 organizations “advocating for a fair and independent justice system,” published a piece warning that the Supreme Court was “destroying its own legitimacy.”

“The Court’s wounds are entirely self-inflicted,” William W. Taylor, III, wrote at the AFJ. “It has a far-right agenda and the scholarship informing its decisions is often questionable. Worse, new details have come to light of relationships some justices have had with wealthy ideological soulmates, including those with interest in cases before the Court. The Court’s credibility and the public’s acceptance of its decisions depends upon trust that it is not subject to outside influence. While lobbying may be common and acceptable in the legislative and executive branches, it is not — nor ought not to be — conceivable in our courts.”

The New York Times on Tuesday took a deep dive into the behind-the-scenes conversations at the end of the summer of 2023 among the Supreme Court justices as they weighed whether or not to establish a code of ethics, amid a nation angered by numerous reports of what many see as blatant corruption.

“Last year, pressure on the court and the chief justice intensified. Journalists revealed that Justice Thomas had accepted far more largess from Harlan Crow, a conservative donor, than he had disclosed, including decades of travel on private jets and a superyacht, and boarding school tuition for his grandnephew. The public uproar also reflected another concern: Virginia Thomas, his wife, had been involved in Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election,” The Times reports.

“Faced with ethics controversies and a plunge in public trust, they were debating rules for their own conduct, according to people familiar with the process,” The Times adds, revealing that “behind the scenes, the court had divided over whether the justices’ new rules could — or should — ever be enforced.”

In the end, the justices all signed onto a new code of ethics for the nation’s highest court, but one that “had no means of enforcement.”

It was quickly criticized.

READ MORE: Why the Hunter Biden Pardon Is ‘Justified’ According to Legal Experts

Liberals on the court have since gone public with their apparent frustration that although there is finally a code of ethics, there is no way to enforce it.

“All three liberals — Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson — supported enforcement, The Times reports.

“Rules usually have enforcement mechanisms attached to them, and this one — this set of rules — does not,” Justice Elena Kagan said in July.

“I haven’t seen a good reason why the ethics code that the Supreme Court adopted shouldn’t be enforceable,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said. “Other justices have posited certain ways in which it could be made enforceable but we have not yet determined or decided to do that.”

By contrast, at least some of the majority right-wing justices appear opposed to any code, certainly one that would have methods of enforcement.

“In the private exchanges, Justice Clarence Thomas, whose decision not to disclose decades of gifts and luxury vacations from wealthy benefactors had sparked the ethics controversy, and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote off the court’s critics as politically motivated and unappeasable,” The Times revealed. “Justice Gorsuch was especially vocal in opposing any enforcement mechanism beyond voluntary compliance, arguing that additional measures could undermine the court. The justices’ strength was their independence, he said, and he vowed to have no part in diminishing it.”

The Times also reveals that the justices “seemed to codify their own preferences” when they drafted, or signed off on the code of ethics.

Those preferences appear largely financial.

The justices “gave themselves no firm restrictions on gifts, travel or real estate deals. Nothing in the new rules appears aimed directly at the trips and gifts Justice Thomas accepted. The code says only that justices should uphold the dignity of the office and comply with existing gift guidelines, in separate federal rules, which make allowances for ‘personal hospitality.’ Justice Thomas has maintained that his nondisclosure of gifts and free travel did not violate those rules,” according to The Times. Other legal experts disagree, with some saying he broke the law.

Since signing the new code of ethics, “questions about the justices’ behavior have continued. The Times revealed that two provocative flags associated with the Jan. 6 riot had flown at the homes of Justice Alito and his wife. The second was displayed at his New Jersey beach house just as the justices were considering the new ethics rules. That summer, he also accepted concert tickets from a far-right German princess. He later disclosed those, but in keeping with the new rules, said nothing about his free stay at her 500-room Bavarian palace.”

Last month, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), among the Senate’s top proponents of Supreme Court reform, wrote: “As long as the Court maintains a secretive billionaire gifts program for justices and unique immunity from ethics scrutiny for itself, and as long as its decisions predictably align with those billionaire interests, its reputation will continue to crash.”

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Alliance for Justice (AFJ) is a progressive judicial advocacy group in the United States.[2][3] Founded in 1979 by current president Nan Aron, AFJ monitors federal judicial appointments. AFJ represents a coalition of 100 politically liberal groups that have an interest in the federal judiciary.[4]

According to the organization, "AFJ works to ensure that the federal judiciary advances core constitutional values, preserves human rightsand unfettered access to the courts, and adheres to the even-handed administration of justice for all Americans."[5]

Contents

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Judicial advocacy

AFJ launched the Judicial Selection Project in 1985 to monitor the federal judicial appointment system.[6] According to AFJ's founder, Nan Aron, the organization wanted to guard against the ideological impact of Ronald Reagan's federal judicial nominees.[7] AFJ objects to judicial nominees who oppose abortion or who promise to exercise judicial restraint.[3] The organization provides background on prospective nominees to the American Bar Association and the Senate Judiciary Committee.[3]

AFJ played a role in the defeat of Ronald Reagan nominee Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987.[8] In 2001, the organization supported the nomination of Roger Gregory, a Bill Clinton nominee and the first African-American judge in the Fourth Circuit in 2001.[9] In 2013, AFJ supported President Barack Obama's three nominees for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[10]

Member organizations

AFJ reports a membership of over 100 organizations. On its website, AFJ lists the following member groups:[11]

References

  1. ^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Justice#cite_ref-IRS_1-1) "IRS Form 990 2014" (PDF). GuideStar. Internal Revenue Service. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  2. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Boyer, Dave (June 6, 2016). "Elizabeth Warren lambastes Senate Republicans for 'obstruction' of judges". Washington Times. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  3. ^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Justice#cite_ref-nyt_3-1) c(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Justice#cite_ref-nyt_3-2) Clarity, James; Weaver Jr., Warren (January 18, 1985). "Here Come the Judges". New York Times. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  4. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Horwitz, Sari; Eilperin, Juliet (November 7, 2014). "Obama to nominate Justice prosecutor Lynch for attorney general". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  5. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "About AFJ". Alliance for Justice. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  6. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Steigerwalt, Amy (2010). Battle over the Bench: Senators, Interest Groups, and Lower Court Confirmations. University of Virginia Press. p. 11. ISBN 9780813929989.
  7. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Scherer, Nancy (2005). Scoring Points: Politicians, Activists, and the Lower Federal Court Appointment Process. Stanford University Press. p. 110. ISBN 9780804749497.
  8. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Greenhouse, Linda (December 4, 1987). "Supreme Court Nominations; After Bork, the Liberals' Silence On Judge Kennedy Is Deafening". New York Times. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  9. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Savage, David (July 21, 2001). "Senate Confirms 3 of Bush's Judicial Nominees". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  10. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Eilperin, Juliet (May 28, 2013). "Obama to launch push to reshape D.C. Circuit with 3 simultaneous nominations". Washington Post. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  11. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "Member Organizations". Alliance For Justice. Retrieved 24 February 2015.

External links

Categories: 

Alliance for Justice - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Justice

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Alliance for Justice (AFJ) is a progressive judicial advocacy group in the United States. Founded in 1979 by current president Nan Aron, AFJ monitors federal ...

President‎: ‎Nan Aron

Headquarters‎: ‎Washington, D.C.

Motto‎: ‎Fighting for a Fair America

Formation‎: ‎1979

Bolder Advocacy - Change the World with Confidence

www.bolderadvocacy.org/

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When an organization's ability to do its work and speak out for its communities and constituents is threatened or can be expanded, Alliance for Justice gets ...

Alliance for Justice - Huffington Post

www.huffingtonpost.com/news/alliance-for-justice/

:{:(style="border-color:#006621;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:8px;margin-top:-4px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

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Alliance for Justice joined the growing list of advocacy groups pressuring the Senate to hold hearings on Chief Judge Merrick Garland's nomination to .

Alliance for Justice – Funding sources, sta