The financial disclosure policies that apply to the US federal judiciary, enacted in the late 1970s, specifically state that the disclosures are not supposed to represent net worth. Although he and his colleagues on the bench are expected to act as neutral arbiters of the law, advocates argue they bring their life experiences with them as they weigh in on cases concerning issues related to class, including student debt relief, renter’s rights, disability claims, and labor unions. The review of the Supreme Court’s financial disclosures shows that Thomas is not the only justice leading a privileged lifestyle.
These are often the biggest assets people own, said Gabe Roth, executive director of advocacy group Fix the Court. None of the justices are required to list the value of their personal residences or the contents of their government retirement accounts. Republicans point out that the donor, Texas real estate investor Harlan Crow, hasn’t been involved in any case that reached the Supreme Court.Ĭourt experts say that significant gaps remain even in the available disclosures, which also include information on spouses and dependent children. Democrats have reintroduced bills to set new ethical standards for the Supreme Court, called for hearings into the court’s recent conduct and asked Chief Justice John Roberts to testify. In the wake of recent ProPublica reports exposing Justice Clarence Thomas’s close relationship with a GOP megadonor, Democratic lawmakers and progressive advocates have ramped up scrutiny of the Supreme Court’s ethics rules. That means the judges, appointed to make decisions affecting millions of Americans, are significantly richer than around 90% of them. As a result, the public can only assess part of each justice’s holdings, valued in a broad range.īut the most recent numbers, which come from the justices’ 2021 financial disclosures released last year and analyzed by Bloomberg News, show that at least six of the Supreme Court justices are multimillionaires. That’s because federal ethics laws require justices to disclose only those assets that might pose a conflict of interest. It’s impossible to get more specific than that. The nine Supreme Court justices in total are worth at least $24 million.
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