Justice Stephen Breyer's retirement announcement has prompted a speculative frenzy over who President Joe Biden will nominate to the Supreme Court. Biden has previously vowed to appoint a Black woman as his Supreme Court justice, and his short list includes at least a dozen people.
Biden is expected to make a final decision by the end of February to replace Breyer and has already begun to reach out to potential candidates, according to CNN.
Insider obtained the most recently available financial disclosure forms for four potential candidates: US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, US District Judge J. Michelle Childs of South Carolina, and US District Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner of Georgia.
The financial disclosures, obtained through the Free Law Project, provide a revealing, if incomplete, picture of their personal finances. The documents in part list salary information, outside income, past positions, travel reimbursements and perks, and details about their various financial investments, including stocks and rental properties.
Some of these investments could conceivably pose conflicts of interest at a time when the public's opinion of the Supreme Court is plummeting, according to recent polls.
The number of Americans who have favorable views of the Supreme Court declined to 54% in January 2022 from 70% in August 2020, according to a new survey by Pew Research Center. A recent Gallup poll painted an even bleaker picture for the high court.
"The public is paying attention to the Supreme Court in a way that I don't think it has in the past because it has both the perception and the reality of being increasingly partisan," Renee Knake Jefferson, a University of Houston law professor.
Jefferson told Insider that it's unclear what the recusal process would look like for any Supreme Court nominee who may have certain investments that could pose an ethical conflict. But it will be something that Biden will carefully have to monitor, Jefferson said.
Ethical conflicts of federal judges has been at the center of controversy since the Wall Street Journal published a report that found that more than 130 federal judges broke the law by overseeing cases in which they or their family members had a financial interest.
This Supreme Court nomination process also comes on the heels of Insider's "Conflicted Congress" project that found that dozens of lawmakers — including those in the US Senate who will vote on a Supreme Court nomination — had potential financial conflicts or violated the law by failing to properly disclose their own stock transactions.
Below are details about four leading Supreme Court nominee candidates' personal finances. This article will be updated as financial disclosures become available for other potential Supreme Court nominees.