Sponsors (97)
Official title: To amend title 28, United States Code, to provide for a code of conduct for justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 20, 2025 by Hank Johnson · Last progress May 20, 2025
The bill trades substantial new transparency and enforceable accountability measures for the federal judiciary against significant new administrative costs, privacy/reputational risks, potential politicization, and burdens that could delay cases and divert judicial resources.
All Americans (taxpayers, litigants, and the public) gain substantially greater transparency because the Supreme Court must publish its code, rules, and related materials online and federal bodies must report regularly on recusal compliance and rule changes.
Supreme Court justices and their law clerks must disclose gifts and income using established federal definitions, increasing visibility into potential conflicts of interest and standardizing reporting.
Federal recusal standards are clarified and a formal recusal process (including random three-judge panels and procedures for submitting written views) gives litigants a consistent statutory pathway to raise disqualification claims, which should reduce bias and inconsistent outcomes.
Federal judges, justices, clerks, and court staff will face substantial additional administrative burden and time diverted from adjudication to handle disclosures, investigations, recusal inquiries, and reporting obligations.
Taxpayers are likely to bear significant new costs to fund staffing, audits, IT systems, investigations, and regular reporting required by the bill.
Expanded public disclosures and publication of non-dismissed reports risk reputational and privacy harms to justices, clerks, donors, and organizations—sometimes before investigations are concluded.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Imposes new ethics codes, disclosure rules, recusal standards, complaint/investigation procedures, and audits for the Supreme Court and federal judges, with deadlines for adoption and recurring compliance studies.
Creates new statutory ethics, disclosure, recusal, and complaint processes for the Supreme Court and other federal judges, and requires new reporting, auditing, and procedural rules to increase transparency and manage conflicts. It directs the Supreme Court and Judicial Conference to issue codes of conduct, requires disclosure of gifts/income and certain lobbying or support for judicial nominations, establishes review panels and procedures for disqualification motions, and orders recurring studies and audits on compliance. Implements multiple deadlines for action (notably 180 days and one year for many items), new filing and disclosure requirements for parties and amici, and investigatory and reporting authorities (panels, the Federal Judicial Center, and GAO) to monitor compliance and enforcement.