Judges on the U.S.Supreme Court are “flawed people” and subject to “ethical lapses,” claims a veteran reporter who covers the body.
Speaking as part of a roundtable panel convened by Politico, the Wall Street Journal’s James Romoser made the comment about the judges when asked how the political environment and a perceived waning of Congressional influence has reshaped coverage of the Court.
Romoser was joined by Politico’s senior legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein, New York Times investigative reporter Jodi Kantor, and Nina Totenberg, a veteran NPR correspondent.
The panelists didn’t hold back in their opinions on a body that has become increasingly scrutinized even as it has become more insulated because of safety fears.
Romoser said that the Supreme Court is not a monolithic, cloistered institution “that acts as a council of oracles handing down abstract legal decrees. Rather, it’s a body of nine individual human beings susceptible to their own motivations. They’re flawed people. They’re subject to ethical lapses, and they’re interesting people. All nine of them are very interesting people.”
Contentious public confirmation hearings and the court’s role in shaping policies affecting everyday Americans has ramped up scrutiny, Romoser said.
“What are they doing behind closed doors? Who is influencing them? What are their interpersonal relationships like? An astute Supreme Court reporter needs to try to delve deeply into all of those topics," Romose said.
Totenberg agreed that the personal dynamics of the Supreme Court are a growing focus of coverage.
“This court is full of people who do not, obviously, really love each other a lot. They get along because they have to get along, up to a point.”
That said, behind-the-scenes horsetrading does influence the end product revealed in open deliberations, Kantor said.
“The justices might say they’re the most transparent branch of government because of oral arguments and opinions, but we all know that there are cases in which the story told in the opinions and the arguments is exactly the same as what really happened and then there are cases in which it’s not,” Kantor said. “The gap between the two is very interesting to me.”
That gap is fueled in part by the secrecy around the court. There is no schedule for reporters to follow, which increases suspicion, Gerstein claimed.
“The court’s finances are almost completely opaque,” Gerstein said. “The court’s operation is almost completely opaque. The court’s payroll is almost completely opaque. Even the clerks — the way we know who the clerks are is because somebody leaks them to David Lat every year. It’s just a bizarre, default secrecy that I think doesn’t actually do the court any favors.”
