FINANCIAL DISCLOSURES ARE OUT | Justices Made Lots Of Money, Traveled The World, And Barely Told Us About Any Of It
June 14, 2019
MONEY MONEY MONEY, OH SO FUNNY
|Fix the Court released the justices’ 2018 disclosure forms yesterday, and as Richard Wolf with USA Today writes, “The nation’s Supreme Court had a lucrative year.” Highlights from the documents include CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS selling off his AT&T stock and earning at least $100,000 from the move, and JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH taking in $225,000 in royalties for his upcoming book.
IN A RICH MAN'S WORLD
|The justices took a total of 64 trips in 2018, for which they received third-party reimbursements. But as GABE ROTH with Fix the Court points out, there’s no way of knowing just how lavish those trips were, or in some cases, who was funding them. Roth urges, “Just as top officials in other branches are required to list the market value of their food, flights and hotels when they travel on someone else’s dime, the justices should have a similar requirement, so that the public can better determine whether an outside source is attempting to buy influence.”
BY THE NUMBERS
|Jacqueline Thomsen with The Hill points out that JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG had the most reported reimbursements (14), with JUSTICES BREYER and KAGAN coming in second and third respectively.
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|The Editorial Board of The Boston Globe thinks SCOTUS made the right call in declining to hear a challenge to a federal gun law that restricts access to firearm silencers. The editorial notes, “By doing nothing, the justices provided at least a glimmer of hope that common sense on guns might prevail at the Supreme Court in the future.”
WHOOPSIES
|“CLARENCE THOMAS says a Smithsonian exhibit about him is wrong. (It’s not.)” That’s the headline of a piece by Peggy McGlone in The Washington Post which notes the justice he wrongly criticized the accuracy of an exhibit about him in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. He took issue with the fact that the exhibit says views on affirmative action result from him going to various schools as a youth. However, as McGlone points out, “The source material for the exhibit appears to be Thomas’s own memoir.”
SCOTUS VIEWS
If The Supreme Court Hears This Case, It Could Change The Face Of Public Education
Forbes“This summer the US Supreme Court is expected to decide whether or not to hear Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. If they hear the case, their decision will have huge repercussions for public education. To grasp why this case matters and why it’s coming up now, there are two pieces of background you need to understand.”
He Won a Landmark Case for Privacy Rights. He’s Going to Prison Anyway.
The New York Times“Timothy Carpenter won’t be remembered for the circumstances that landed him in prison, but for the Supreme Court case that bears his name. Carpenter v. United States, which set a new benchmark for privacy in the digital age, requires the police to obtain a warrant before obtaining cellphone location history from a phone company. Privacy advocates hailed the ruling, and saw in it the potential for broader protections for personal data in the digital age.”