Quote (bogie160 @ Jun 24 2023 11:00pm)
The ProPublica article boils down to two points. One, Alito received a free plane ticket ProPublica believes he should have reported, and two, this matters because he ended up ruling on a case where the plane ticket gifter was an interested party. In Sotomayor's case, she was earning millions of dollars from a publishing house, and she clearly ruled on a case where her employer was a direct party.
Both Alito (who openly discussed the trip with media at the time) and Sotomayor (who is required to report the income) didn't consider it a conflict of interest. In Alito's case, we're talking about a few hundred dollars to book your own flight. In Sotomayor's case, we're talking about millions of dollars. Unless we're getting stuck up on some imagined procedural crime, and whether that's the case I don't know one way or the other, I'm not sure where the confusion is. Clearly Sotomayor has the more compelling personal interest. That being said, Sotomayor is probably right to think that Penguin House is not going to cancel her contract one way or the other based on how she voted, and she could have reasonably concluded that there is no conflict of interest. I'm fine with that. But we can and should call ProPublica out for a shoddy hit piece that aligns with the Democratic party's villain of the week.
E: To focus solely on Alito, the general narrative from the left is that the Supreme Court is personally corrupt, thereby undermining any decisions they make and setting the stage for future reform (tbd). The question we should ask is whether the alleged indiscretion is at a level where we should be concerned. Was Alito selling decisions like Blagojevich sold senate seats? The general tone of the ProPublica article then veers off into a wider conversation on whether Supreme Court justices are allowed to have social friends, or remain in contact with colleagues in the Federalist Society. For that we should ask, would ProPublica have the same concerns with someone remaining in contact with leading members of the ABA? Probably not.
I didn't read the article, but my understanding is that Alito did not report the free flight in his disclosures. I assume Sotomayor did report that income from the book deal. So those are worthy distinctions.
Second, I'm a random peasant so I've only flown on normal airlines but I assume a ticket to fly private is thousands of dollars(if it's cheaper maybe you could send me links). So Alito flying private for free, on a billionaires jet, a guy who has cases before the court, is basically a stereotypical example of an ethically compromised position. Again, this action does not prove Alito was compromised, but the principle that should exist for Supreme Court justices is that this kind of thing cannot happen.
I don't think a book deal is the same as a free flight from a billionaire. Maybe the ethics rules should be strict enough that Sotomayor should've recused, but that's a whataboutist argument which avoids the main issue which is Alito and Thomas getting a bunch of free perks from their billionaire buddies, which is far more ethically troublesome than a book deal. Sotomayor could've gotten a book deal from anybody... there's only so many billionaires out there to offer their private jets to SC justices.
This post was edited by IceMage on Jun 24 2023 11:56pm