studentcam.org. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we're funded by these television companies and more, including cox. >> cox is committed to providing eligible families access to affordable internet through the connect to compete program. bridging the digital divide one connected and engage student at a time. cox, bringing us closer. >> cox supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. host: joining us is gh serving as executive director. thank you for giving us your time. guest: thanks for having me on. host: tell the audience a little bit about your organization, what your mission is as you would describe it and how you are financially backed if you would. guest: so it is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that advocates for

greater accountability and transparency. -- transparency in all federal courts, primarily the supreme court. we are funded by average americans who have given us funds and think we are doing a good job. host: do you take a certain point of view when it comes to issues with the supreme court? as it -- is it a partisan take? guest: we have always been nonpartisan. going on 7.5 years we have been around. we do not believe ethics or transparency in the government has a part -- individuals from certain parties may think one way or another but we work with republicans and democrats, conservatives and liberals everyday to try to bring the supreme court and other federal courts kicking and screaming in it -- into that when he first century. host: with your title, what is the part that needs to be fixed? guest: do you have more than 30 minutes? i think we have six main fixes,

one is median broadcast, thinking also bring court hearings should be livestreamed. we want life tenure on the supreme court, we think the supreme court should have a code of conduct, we think the justices public appearances should be livestreamed as well, we think their financial books, disclosures they have to fill out every year should be posted online, and we think they should be more forthcoming about what stocks they own and when they recuse. host: i suppose several of those bullet points would fall into the news or stories that have been coming up between justice thomas, emails and texts by his wife jenny. guest: yes. it has been a busy few weeks. we hope that it spurs the koran congress to action. guest: with that specific story, what is your organization's take on what transpired over the last couple weeks since we found out about this? guest: it is a unique story in american history. january 6 and the coup attempt

is unique to begin with but the fact the supreme court justices wife was involved in planning the efforts to subvert our democracy is very concerning given how close clarence and janine are. it was likely that jenny was referring to clarence in her text messages talking about her best friend, that is how they talk about each other. the fact the purple strategy, h.e.r., mark meadows, and the election subvert servers, if that is a word, were trying to reach the supreme court. the goal was to get to the supreme court and justice thomas for hearing election cases, many who reach the super in court. there is a case texas brought, one in pennsylvania, and it was a case about january 6 two. clarence was the lone vote against allowing congress to subpoena former president trump's documents related to that investigation by the

congressional committee. there are a lot of touch points if you will where the work of jenny and clarence has been intersected and we want to separate out that vent diagram as much as possible and restore the integrity of the court. host: i suppose critics would say that as far as the bend diagram illustration, if there are straight lines between the texts and clarence thomas's decision-making that he makes, would you say those exist or would you say you have to look at those things as you look at them as far as curiosities or at least suspicions but not necessarily something that ties the two together? guest: i just look at the federal law. federal law says all justices shall disqualify themselves in any case in which they -- which their impartiality might be questioned. maybe some of the viewers out there don't think i'm being reasonable but i think if you talk to legal ethics scholars,

read the editorial pages, i'm getting text messages from my friends i never hear from about what is going on at the supreme court. i think the reasonable person believes there is some sort of ethical issue that we are seeing. the fact i'm talking to you now about this clearly is a reasonable person that thinks there's an ethical issue with clarence thomas due to these texts. i think he should step aside from any january 6 related cases at the supreme court, all 2020 election cases. the fact there are some percolating still is crazy but that is the case. and the supreme court should proactively say these will be our ethic guide rails. it is weird we are the only court in america that does not have a binding code of ethics that lets us take the leap and join everyone else to say this is what an ethics code is and what it should be and we will follow it to restore public faith in our institution.

host: our guest is with us until 9:30. if you want to ask questions, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. text us at (202) 748-8003. one of those people that were asked about these kinds of things related to the last question i asked was senator josh hawley on the senate, walking in the senate core doors, asked about the relationship between clarence thomas and his wife and the texts. i want to play his response and then i want to to respond to it. [video clip] >> what is the implication the justice is signing off on her text messages? >> she was texting mark meadows to overturn the election. >> i get that, but, listen, she is an independent adult woman. it seems strange to me all of these calls for her husband to be watch, minding her better?

frankly i think it is misogynistic. it is like ginni thomas is out there saying stuff, you better go get her under control. you are responsible for what she says. she is an independent person, you know? she has got her own political views and have been doing this for a long time. if you want to take issue with her that is fine but she is not on the bench. to me it seems like wow. host: so that a senator hawley's take, what do you think? guest: it does not hold water. this is a strategy ginni thomas was a part of that would lead to somehow the supreme court itself overturning the election results. if you cannot see how the integrity of the justice would be impugned there, i don't know what to tell you. i think there is an unfortunate partisan makeup of some of these calls for recusal. there's a bill with the supreme

court ethics act and is all democrats and no republicans have supported it yet. never mind four years ago pretty soon after justice ginsburg made her comment calling trump a faker and a liar, there was a bipartisan agreement and house judiciary committee to impose a code of conduct on the supreme court. just like with so many things in washington, these issues, it is difficult for folks including senator hawley to take out -- step away from retreating to one partisan corner. clarence thomas is under attack it, it's gotta be some democratic plot. i'm saying respectfully, senator, this is not some plot, this -- obviously jenny has been doing this a long time, to quote what he said, but when you are working in circles that lead directly to your husband's court , the recusal law is fairly

clear and it says of your white has any interest -- your spouse as an interest that could come before you as a federal judge, it is your duty to not participate in that issue or case. i think that is where i land and hopefully more republicans land as well. host: it was back earlier this year where your organization asked the chief justice for development of a code of ethics for the supreme court. what came of that and what do you envision that would look like? guest: so two things, i was sitting behind justice kagan in 2019 when she told the house appropriations kid maybe that the chief justice was working on a code of conduct. i followed up and have other folks followed up with supreme court sources and looks like there has not been any work on it since 2019, which is sad. and i work with legal ethics scholars, about two dozen of them, that before the text message stories came out, back

february 3, they sent a letter to the chief justice saying we need a binding code of conduct and believe the justices should write it on themselves. now we move to a point where congress is taking a serious look at this. there will be hearings in the house, hearings in the senate, house and senate members have also written a letter to the supreme court. somehow in 2022, it's the way that things get done but about two dozen house and senate democrats wrote a letter to the chief justice asking for binding code of conduct. things are moving. i think the focus on the hill right now is -- at least from the majority side -- is to get judge jackson confirmed and then come back from easter recess and have some of these hearings. these issues are not going away. we know things are going to come out as the january 6 committee gets more documents. i would expect a constant

drumbeat and may be a subpoena for ginni thomas in the coming weeks. host: gabe roth of fixt hecourt joining us. caller: thank you for taking my call. i hope gabe will continue to do what he is doing, start at the top, which is the supreme court, and maybe come on down. we will come on down to all of them, government, and get it straightened out because all of it is ms as far as i'm concerned. host: is that your comment or do you have a question for our guest? caller: yes. husband and wife, no. the things they are doing is ridiculous. it really is. then he's going to descend on whether or not to take the january 6 thing? no. because he know his wife was involved. do you hear a pillow talk? host: that is mary in ohio.

guest: again it is just an unprecedented case. you never even list -- justice ginsburg husband was involved in the law, jane roberts was involved in the law and chief justice roberts's wife, and they were political. we knew marty was in politics but they were never involved to this extent. to give one example, senator sherrod brown of ohio, his wife accomplished journalist was in the gallery and went up to chief justice's roberts wife during the trump impeachment that chief justice presided over and asked how do you think things are going? what is she say back? can't talk about it. so there's a way to be ethical and marty ginsburg gave up his law practice when justice ginsburg became justice ginsburg. there are ways to be above suspicion and the thomases are

not doing that. host: a viewer asked this question of you, who would enforce engines on violations of the so-called code of ethics? enforcement would imply the court is subordinate to the other branches. guest: that's the 64 million dollar question, how would you enforce? two answers, one is there is always the option of impeachment and removal. i do not think we have met that far or we are really anywhere close to that far in this case but there is always -- that is always an enforcement mechanism that congress has an order to keep judges and justices in line. there have been a dozen federal judges impeached in american history and only once up in court justice and he was not removed. that was about 200 years ago. that is always an option, maybe not in this case, but and potential future cases because things could always get worse. the second thing i would say is

there is value in having a code, whether it be court of public opinion or peer pressure saying chief justice roberts or justice breyer, however, saying we are supposed to uphold this cold and abide by the scriptures and you are not doing it and it is imputing the integrity of the core. the supreme court is at its lowest popular approval ever i think. it behooves the justices to take proactive steps to improve that trust and the binding code of conduct would be one step. my organization released a 10 point plan in the last week saying how we could fix this scandal and code of conduct was only one of them. we want stronger recusal standards, we want to be a -- to be easier to file a recuse, we want the judicial conference to explain what political activity justices and just -- and judges can participate in. a code of conduct is easy

shorthand to say there are a lot of ethical shortcomings. we definitely need that. i think it is step one in a more comprehensive, real overhaul of how we look at the ethics and transparency of our highest court. host: this may not surprise you but we did the survey this year on the supreme court in one of the questions we asked about it is the code of ethics for the court needed 72% of those responding saying yes, 15% no, 14% not sure. guest: consistent with what our organization has polled often times using the same polestar. we have gotten usually in the 70% to 85% range and it is across-the-board. it is the same number, at least in our polling, and we have been tracking this before the court was created back when it was called the coalition for court transparency in 2013. democrats, independents, and republicans say the same thing. it's not like 80% are democrats and when he percent are republicans. it is consistent across

partisan lines. i think it's important to say may be in washington, the josh hawley's on the world -- of the world are not on board but when you explain that the supreme court is the only court in the country that does not have a binding code of ethics, that's really inexcusable and does not touch any of the partisan touch points it doesn't washington. host: there's a lot more to that court survey that we did if you want to check it out on our website. we have a special section for if you want to read the responses. let's hear from john in washington state, republican line. hi. caller: how are you this morning? guest: good, thanks. caller: i wonder what gives you the right to comment on somebody's free speech? you don't do anything that amounts to anything? guest: thank you for your assessment of my work. i think there is value to having

nonpartisan watchdogs in any form of government. the president, when the president issues -- says things which he can say via his rights to free speech, lots of folks respond. when the members of congress go out and say certain things, folks have the right to respond. that is also part of their free speech in my free speech. i think i have a track record of being balanced, and when justice sotomayor -- i'm just as critical of justice sotomayor when she flies first class to rhode island to give a talk and is not reported on her financial disclosures as i am to justice scalia when he flies on a private plane to texas to hunt and does not reported on his disclosures. so i think there are naturally organizations -- we are a lean, small organization. it is not like we are taking any tax money or anything. i think there are plenty of like-minded folks throughout the country that really want to be

sure that we have the highest court in the land, which by the way 20 years ago was not having such an impact on our lives. just in the last 20 years we have had the supreme court decide two presidential elections. they alter the decisions of life and death, every voting law, abortion law, health care law, anything major happening in the united states, the final word has been the supreme court. it used to be the supreme court would say part or all of the law is unconstitutional and then congress would go back and rewrite the law. so congress or the president would redo the executive order, but the executive branch and congress itself are still gridlocked. the supreme court employers a vacuum in washington implores a vacuum. i thing we want nonpartisan watchdogs insuring the nine judges making those life-and-death decisions are above core ethically.

that is what we see our job to be. host: you talked about the recusal standards, talked about that, what is the standard and what should change about the standard? guest: so right now, it is anytime a justice's impartiality is impugned, they have to step aside. they say if they have a financial stake in the case or their spouse does or if they know facts of the case, worked on the case in a previous job, they have to recuse. i do not think that is good enough. i think the federal judiciary and federal judges are sort of taking advantage of that position and the lax enforcement in punishment standards. and are being flown around the country by political donors and are getting lavish gifts and are able to do that and sometimes they reported on their annual disclosures and sometimes they do not because of personal hospitality exemption.

so just to use a recent example, judge jackson is a member of the harvard board of overseers, and there is a -- consuming -- assuming judge jackson does confirms, she would be on the board. she already said she would recuse, but to me it is almost less about being on some harvard board to needs to recuse and over the course the last decade, judge jackson has been flown to boston and put up in a nice hotel and give nice meals by harvard university, something like 40 or 50 times. so proceedings will resume on >> we'll take you live to the house floor gaveling back in for votes. you can find "washington journal" online at c-span.org or the c-span now app. h.r. 1218. h.r. 2501. h.r. 4476.