'Cut funding': Experts say Congress should 'make justices' work conditions miserable'

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee requested that Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito come to explain themselves over recent scandals from the latter. Legal analysts, however, came up with some ideas that the Senate could implement on the Supreme Court.

"Just a reminder that the markup for the FY'25 Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill, which contains the funding for the federal judiciary, is just around the corner!" wrote Georgetown University professor Josh Chafetz on X.

Lawyer Daniel Schuman told Chafetz, "Perish the thought of Congress authorizing an ethics code on an appropriations bill." But Chafetz said that his implication was more literal about making the judges more uncomfortable.

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"Oh, I was thinking more of just cutting funding for air conditioning, clerks, the building, etc," said Chafetz.

"I was thinking about banning the junkets to Italy paid by outside entities and creating a Judiciary IG, but that's fun, too," replied Schuman.

National security expert Marcy Wheeler suggested, "Congress should cut funding for SCOTUS because they barely work anymore. [Give] the pay incentives for rulings within two months. Just like NFL quarterbacks do."

Anthony Michael Kris, a legal analyst known for his no-opinion explainers on X, noted, "The originalist approach to a non-responsive Court is to legislatively make justices’ work conditions as miserable as possible."

The ethics rules for the federal judiciary are much more restrictive than the Supreme Court. For example, Bloomberg reported, "The lower court code directs judges to 'take appropriate action' if they get 'reliable information' that a judge, court employee, or lawyer may have violated ethics rules. The Supreme Court's version only refers to acting on information about employee misconduct."

The federal judiciary also allows the public to file complaints about ethical breaches by judges. The Supreme Court does not have such a system.

The Bloomberg report made a side-by-side comparison and noted specifically that the High Court had removed any enforcement mechanism.

"The justices’ version leaves out a sweeping opening line in the lower court version: 'An independent and honorable judiciary is indispensable to justice in our society,'" the report continued.

"Lower court judges are told to 'maintain and enforce' and 'personally observe' high standards of conduct, while the justices’ version doesn’t include 'enforce.' The commentary in the lower courts’ version discusses how the code is relevant to the judicial disciplinary process. There is no such language in the Supreme Court version," it also said.