Covering the Land of Lincoln

Ohio couple’s gifts show need for U.S. Supreme Court ethics code, congressional committee told

WASHINGTON, DC – Meals and vacations that a wealthy evangelical Ohio couple bestowed on conservative US Supreme Court justices were cited as a reason the nation’s highest court needs an ethics code at a Thursday hearing by the House Judiciary Committee.

Gayle and Don Wright of Centerville, Ohio, were part of a program called “Operation Higher Court” that recruited “wealthy donors, and stealth missionaries” to befriend justices that shared its conservative social and religious sensibilities, the program’s former leader, Rev. Robert Schenk, told the committee. He said his donors hosted justices or their spouses for meals at restaurants, private clubs, or their homes and sometimes the justices reciprocated.

At one of those meals, he said Justice Samuel Alito gave the Wrights advance notice of the outcome of a 2014 decision in a case that allowed private employers to refuse to provide birth control insurance to employees if it violates the company owners’ religious beliefs. The New York Times reported that Schenck used that information to prepare a public relations push and tipped off the president of Hobby Lobby, the craft store chain that won the case.

Gayle Wright and Alito both denied that a leak occurred. The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan of Champaign County, attacked Schenk’s credibility by questioning the accuracy of a passage in a book written by Schenck that attributed fictitious statements to former Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

“One thing I’ve learned, people who mislead folks on small things, mislead them on big things,” said Jordan. “And you know what? Ye can ye can lie in a book, that’s not a crime. You can lie to The New York Times, that’s not a crime. But when you come in front of Congress and you say things that are not true, you’re not allowed to do that.”

Regardless of whether Alito leaked the decision to the Wrights, other witnesses said they thought it was improper for the Wrights to provide expensive treats for justices, such as vacations at their home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, or a quail hunting trip that Schenck said that former Justice Antonin Scalia made with Don Wright, that he believed was in South America.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) chief counsel Donald K. Sherman told the committee there’s a potential danger in wealthy activists using their money to get the justices to change their mind or decide in their favor. He said that gift bans that apply to lower court judges don’t apply to Supreme Court justices.

“Essentially, what you have is justices accepting gifts based on whether they choose to accept them or not,” said Sherman. “Everybody loves free trips, but certainly at the highest court in our land, we should have a transparent process for the justices to resolve those conflicts of interests.”

The committee’s chairman, New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler, said that Supreme Court justices “cannot effectively self-police” and shouldn’t be expected to do so. He urged passage of legislation that would create a code of ethics for the Supreme Court, saying it “would help restore America’s faith in our highest court.”

Jordan, who will chair the committee when Republicans take over Congress, didn’t indicate that he’d favor such legislation but his ally, Florida Republican Matt Gaetz, said he’d support “bipartisan efforts to have some sort of an ethics construct on the court,” during the next Congress.

“I don’t understand why Congress is subject to ethics rules, the executive (branch) is subject to ethics rules, but because we got a black robe on somebody and give them a lifetime appointment, all of a sudden, when they fail to enact their own ethics rules, we just allow that to occur,” Gaetz said.

Sabrina Eaton covers the federal government and politics in Washington, DC, for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. Read more of her work here.

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