the idea because you don't like the opinion were going to change the whole structure possibly ruin our court as it happened in other countries. it is really the wrong approach. if you are really being honest and meant thatt he of these injustices and no than they had their judicialju philosophy they are doing their best to come to the right conclusion with the law said through with the constitution says and if you don't like it, let's have a public discussion about those issues. and let's see if we can put more justices in the future on that. go with whatever that philosophy is. the idea of completely dismantling and changing the court is a very bad idea. we do great damage to our country. >> the first liberty.org. thank you for the conversation precooked thank you. >> want to alert you to breaking news this morning. bloomberg was first with the

story that the wall street journal report is been imprisoned byen russia is set to be freed in a major prisoner swap is there headlight along with evan is paul as well. to free it in a multicountry prisoner swap. more on that coming up on the "washington journal" our last 30 minutes or so we will get your reaction to that news in open form. right now we are continuing our conversation on reforms to the supreme court for joining us is gabe roth executive director fix the court. your group advocated on reforms to the suprememe court. if you go far enough away propose? >> is definitely a good start bu' we have been advocating for term limits and ethics go for about 10 years. we are pleased to see the president is on board with these reforms 70, 80% no matter how

you asked the question favors in forcible ethics code foods are popular policies they want to put forward popular policies. it's very consistent where they went to seat the court the court is acting more political, acting more ethically certain guardrails should be established that would skew the court back to a more traditional background. forr the justices were not serving for 30 years like they theyare now the average was abo6 years up until recently. and in terms of ethics as an ethics crisis on the court despite your last guest says anyone reading it on the press as seen over the last years lasted longer than that. that will be the really important step for president biden to think about and please. >> nascentn rights in the wall street journal he is a lawyer he's petitioned for before the

supreme court the high court term limitser are a waste of wisdom at writing this alexander hamilton wrote in federalist number 78 judiciary was the weakest of the three departments. he also warned periodical appointments of federal judges will be fatal to the necessary independence. judges should not have too great a disposition to consult popularity. experience on the bench generates wisdom that term limits would swiftly eradicate. cook's term limits love throwing out federal seven it was a way to read the other federalist papers or anti- federalist papers about time. but for me what we have here is the justices are exerting political power. the idea term limits would take away their independence. he read the constitution which is a little more important than the federalist papers you have a president who is elected official. appointing the injustices you have the senate that all

political elected officials confirming that justices. sure maybe the last 20 or 30 years you've got a kennedy who might be towards the middle. if you read the founding documents that justices are going to be political course or can be based on political patronage based on what their political views are you're not going to have a republican president if n you just are reading the constitution importing someone is liberal in the random flips we have seen that is happenstance that is the outlier what makes more sense given our constitutional contours if the court is a political body how do you make it less political by having regular turnover having ethical guardrails but. >> you also have proposed increase in median public assets are talking about cameras in the court? research on what kim is in the court. i'm taking the torch at c-span handed beeper you've all been on top of that for years. brian is been amazing on that.

that is something i worked with you a lot on i'm very excited we have live audio not just the supreme court but every federal court of appeals. i am standing on the shoulders of giants here on c-span on that reform. >> c-span has repeatedly asked the court to allow cameras into the courtroom to do what we do in congress. in both chambers show the process unfolding without analysis without interruption and no commentary you havelso agreed with the psident 18 year term limits for justices. forcible code of ethics more transparency and potential conflict of interest. adopt financial disclosure rule similar to members of congress executive branch more openness around public appearances, what do you mean? talk about those. >> on public appearances a lot of justices are appearing at events might find out about them three years later. in some of those events are

partisan. just like when i work for politicians back in that i had set out a press release the night before saying commissioner x was appearing at a place why at times the. the supreme court should do that to not for every event but for some and i don't care what justice breyer is off the court will use and has an example for i don't care what he is meetingp with his grandkids but if you have a justice thomas or one of these other partisan groups i think it is important for the public to know about it obviously i am concerned about security the supreme court can manage that. i do not want the justices meeting with people in their chambers of board member of the supreme court historical society if you remember about 18 months ago there was a scandal or historical society was being used as aic vessel to get to

influence it justices its operation higher court a guy name rob shank him and his political operatives happen to be on the conservative side. what views the supreme court historical society their event to try to influence them on issues of choice. i think knowing a little bit more about who the justices are speaking with, when they are appearing i found in appears justice jackson made could be on ethical if gifts were exchanged by do not know the supreme court about a week ago trying to figure out what the deal is with that. and help with they'll get back to me. think it is important to know the justices are meeting with food they are not being influenced by political independence in groups frequently say incident you've asked us a room court to clarify? sure breaking news. so justice jackson attended a dinner with the head of the u.s. patent and trademark office. i found a picture of it on flickr or one of these websites.

i was doing a search for something else actually the head of the trademark office is often litigants at the supreme court there is a picture with justice jackson there are many were he has the lead litigant they responded and the petitioner and again this is interpersonal capacity on one hand in the other hand if you had i don't knowti meeting with merrick garland or president biden they might be friends. it's a friendly event there is frequent litigants with the corporate youit want to make sue no gifts are being made. based on they have been friends for a long time fight if this is only a new thing justice jackson and the director similarly were

all worried not because this is what justice thomas old friends he only became friends with justice thomas because he was a justice. so the timing is a factor with the supreme court to clarify for. >> allen is in sterling, colorado republican. >> yes, hello. >> question or comment? >> a little bit of both. where does the speaker think our justices are not following the constitution? we have checks and balances and the supreme court is the major balance and checks for irregularity for our constitution. they need to follow the constitution here regardless of

whether they are republican, democrat or independent. go ahead. >> in terms following the constitution that frankly other organizations concerns. my concern is of their opinion might concern is are they following federal ethics law other other federal ethics laws that can be drafted that are similar for congress the president have to file the supreme court a lower court judges should also follow. when someone like justice thomas or justice jackson does not file a financial disclosure report accurately there is a federal law that says you judicial conference refer that individual to the justice department for investigation. that person, that justice can be fined. if a lawsuit is filed against them that's a federal law i am concerned about. similarly there is a federal refusal statute that says any judge or justice shall disqualify himself in any case in which their impartiality

might reasonably question. there's a lot of questions in the last year what these are both statutes. the way i read the constitution i believe the constitution establishes one court, the supreme court however congress has a lot of power over how the institution operates. congress sets its docket it is developed unless 250 years. the fact is almost one 100% discretionary was a decision congress made. congress sets when it sits, where it sits how much money he gets eachmu year. the number of justices. i'm a little less worried there are other organizations the environment marriage and healthcare and choice in all of that i am more worried about the justices following ethical guidelines that are already existent and federalal statute r other branches but not the courts, elsewhere in federal statute.

>> on president biden's reform proposal, the leader of the republican party in the senate, mitch mcconnell kentucky has this to say on the senate floor. >> he says he wants term limits, his own justices. never mindnd with the constitutn says. never mind the advice and consent role of the senate. president biden and his leftist allies do not like the current composition of the court. so they want to shred the constitution to change it. he wants what he calls an ethics code and that already exist. the president is proposing as a stealth process for people other than the justices to decide cases. again the constitution be damaged. the fact is president biden himself came to office and stood up to investigate whether it could change the supreme court.

this morning the president thanked its commission or its cycle analysis that supposedly exists reform proposals. neverd mind this commission cochaired by one of his closest political confidants did not actually recommend that he do anything. >> gave it rough your response commission did not recommend any reform. >> because of the executive order creating the commission explicitly said do not give recommendations to study the issue. and then most of the commission then went on record and said actually went ethics reform for lent term limits. tons of op ed from roosevelt, professor johnson, professor fredrickson, always have on the commission. all support term limits at ethics they were not allowed to give recommendations per se. to senator mcconnell's other

point, binding ethics code is something that almost existed for the supreme court. after a watergate there's a lot of good government rules been put into effect like the final disclosure law we are all familiar with. also a law that would have established an ethics -- of the judicial conduct commission that could have investigated on unethical behavior of the justices. the justices lobbied against their inclusionel in that bill that taken out of the bill the bill with the justices and it was about it for me by barry goldwater, strom thurmond, orrin hatch, joe biden, pat leahy, we are talking about a bipartisan bill again 45 or 50 years ago the justices -- make a shabby way to file a complaint against the dress is there a way to adjudicate that complaint. it is not a radical idea is how the law was originally put into place before mitch mcconnell's

elite favor court the ninth circuit put in their own ethics group and said we'll take it with that ninth circuit doing. that was the way it developed. no more dangerous and a set of ethics committee or house ethics committee which by the way i believe both exists. but go to nikki new york independent. independent. >> "good morning p america." how i wonder sometimes how do nine supreme court justices when there are 13 judicial districts. i also wonder that how it is every other federal judge including irene cannon donald trump court master whose presidess over his last criminl trial was decided to be a special master over the supreme

court gave the current sitting president, joe biden, and immunity from a any criminal ac. including removing the supreme court today. and he can be prosecuted. he can be. >> you have any thoughts? >> look, my organization does not deal directly with the supreme court opinions. we are talkingt more about the institution and how we think it should be a good steward of ethical and moral leadership and frankly it's falling short of that party first point about the other nine justices currently the country has expanded since they were created. it's not difficult for chief justice roberts to oversee more than one circuit he oversees based in richmond. other justices could oversee more than one circuit that is not difficult.

the reason people -- american is becauset justices is there's more circuit. i do not business would buy the argument i do not support court expansion. seceding to the notion will be an elected officials decide what policies should be moving forward not whatever it majority the supreme court is at any given time. but it is an interesting thing to think about. i just don't think it has any bearing on the current makeup of the court. click to john, and lincoln, nebraska. >> thank you for taking my call. i kinda think we do need more judges to represent. maybe preferably one per state. i know it does not work like that. but that number it would represent -- it would have a good feeling to it i guess is what i am trying to say the other thing you mentioned was ethics.

i'm calling in the question how competent some of these judges are? it is to kick people out of court they are not competent whatever. whatever comes to something else like a traffic ticket or something. i don't know, someone is trying to argue accepting gifts or bribes or spending that much time with the billionaires when you're in charge of something very important you are it looked up to by your peers. you know what i am saying someone with that much power, and a handful of people that they are competent, they understand how fragile something like that is especially when there's just a handful of them. i really think we need more judges. that way they can kind of monitor each other's activities and make sure they're staying within the boundary of the law. >> was take your point do you think there should be more justices? >> i mean no. i think i was pretty clear earlier. fifty judges in the country one

per state egged that you have 50 of them hearing every single case you need to have panels of justices hearing each case that would violate the one supreme court clause under the constitution. i am good with the number nine for now. in terms of ethics and gifts the problem that we have is this give an example of bennie thompson who is head of the january 6 committee asked justice thomas to recuse himself in the generally six cases which she reasonably could of it all will i be justice thomas decidig the statement that refusal notion. the idea that you as an individual are masters of understanding your own bias is ridiculous it has been disproven goes all the way back no man should be a judge in his own case that includes i decisions f impartiality.

i like the idea of having outside officials other justices suggested in a recent appearance. just like in the lower court discuss, write a report and recommend remedies for the justices should they violate their oath. >> is hear from kathy and bethel, delaware republican hi kathy. >> good morning to you both. three points if i may. the democrats did not have a problem with the supreme court until the left was no longer in control. the conservatives had a say. and now they are having a hissy fit. and the only way to counter the weaponization of the justice department and to counter the executive orders of the

president is the supreme court. sandra day o'connor said years ago that sooner or later the court was going to have to address affirmative action. they have done that. one thing that i think is awed is no one is talking about that decision by the supreme court. it is just off the radar. supreme court has had a majority of justices appointed by republican presidents since 1969 the fact you can look it up the reactionary opinions on the right that i personally do not agree with. i think some of the opinions that are more left i might not

agree with some of those as well. to me it is less about, is the left or right winning? but are the justices issuing opinions based on their own clinical preferences? despite the fact happy opinions are unanimous. sometimes went six -- three is not the usual lineup. the cases that matter are six -- three. all cases are equal. he said no one cares about the affirmative action case anymore. no one cares about the aep case that is nine -- nine. i think the justices because they're acting politically they should be subject to some of these same ethical guardrails that politicians have. you give a quick example a recent bills introduced in the house and hopefully there will

be at the opinion of the senate to restrict the amount of gifts supreme court justice is a lower court judges have they have rules about accepting gifts. the loopholes are want to join ormiston. this would require to file the same gift accepting rules members of congress follow. that's really what the basis of my organization the basis of my mission as people are realizing the justices are political they been political for my entire lifetime. requiring default on the same rules the political branches have to follow very. >> gabe roth as executive director fix the course. you can find more information fix the court.com with the handle at fix the corporate thank you for the conversation. >> coming up tonight on c-span2 look at u.s. nuclear security and the challenges posed by other countries. then national whistleblowers center commemorating national was whistleblower day with event earlier this week