Supreme Court Ethics Bill Demands Transparency, Requires Justices to Match Congressional Gift Rules

This legislation, the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act of 2025, is a major overhaul aimed at bringing the highest court under a formal, publicly accountable ethics structure. At its core, the bill mandates that the Supreme Court establish its own formal code of conduct within 180 days of the law passing. It also sets up a formal process for investigating complaints against Justices and drastically expands the rules for when a judge—from the Supreme Court down to the district level—must step aside from a case due to conflicts of interest.

The Supreme Court Must Write Its Own Rulebook

One of the biggest shifts is the requirement for the Supreme Court to create and publish its own code of conduct (Section 2). Think of it as the Court finally having to publish the internal rules of the road. While this is a huge step toward transparency, the bill allows the Justices themselves to draft these rules. They also have to set up a procedure for handling complaints, which will then be investigated by a five-judge panel randomly selected from the chief judges of the U.S. Circuit Courts. This panel can hold hearings and issue subpoenas, giving the process real teeth. However, the final findings and recommendations go back to the Supreme Court, which maintains significant control over the outcome.

Crucially, this bill forces Supreme Court Justices to meet the same minimum gift and income disclosure standards that Members of Congress must follow (Section 3). If your Senator or Representative has to disclose a gift or income source, so will a Supreme Court Justice. For busy professionals, this means a significant increase in publicly available information about the financial ties and outside income of the people making decisions that affect everything from your mortgage to your healthcare.

Disqualification: The Six-Year Lookback

The bill dramatically expands the circumstances under which a judge must step down from a case, focusing on outside influence and financial ties (Section 4). If a party in a case—or someone closely connected to them—either lobbied the judge or spent “significant money” trying to get them nominated or confirmed, the judge is disqualified. Even more impactful is the financial tie rule: if a judge, their spouse, or minor child received money, gifts, or reimbursements from a party in the case anytime within the six years leading up to the case, the judge must recuse themselves. This six-year lookback period is designed to catch long-term financial relationships that might influence judicial decisions, ensuring that the person ruling on your case doesn’t have a recent, undisclosed financial history with one of the parties.

Furthermore, judges now have an explicit duty to actively check their finances and those of their immediate family for potential conflicts. If they find one, they must immediately notify all parties involved. To ensure transparency, court clerks must publish public notice of any disqualification, including the reason why the judge stepped down. This is a big win for accountability, though the bill allows for redacting sensitive information if a review panel deems it unnecessary for the public to fully understand the reason.

Challenging a Judge: New Review Panels

If you’re a lawyer or litigant who believes a judge should be disqualified, the bill establishes a new process for challenging that judge (Section 5). If the judge doesn't immediately agree to step down, the motion goes to a review panel. For lower court judges, this panel is made up of three randomly selected, outside judges. However, for Supreme Court Justices, the review panel is the rest of the Supreme Court (excluding the Justice being challenged). While this creates a formal review process where none existed before, having the Justices police their own recusal decisions is less independent than the system set up for every other federal judge.

Finally, the bill requires parties and amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court groups) to disclose any gifts, income, or reimbursements they provided to a Justice during the two years leading up to the case (Sections 6 & 7). This means if a non-profit files a brief, they must disclose any person or entity that gave them over $100,000 or 3% of their annual revenue. This level of financial disclosure is aimed at exposing the money and influence behind the arguments being presented to the Court, ensuring that the Justices—and the public—know exactly who is funding the legal push.