- On Monday afternoon, the Supreme Court announced each of its justices had signed a code of conduct.
- Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, said it "falls short."
The chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee said the Supreme Court's newly signed code of conduct — which lacks any enforcement mechanisms — "falls short of what we could and should expect."
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, the committee's chair, made the statement in a Monday evening post to X hours after the high court announced the agreement.
"The Supreme Court has finally responded after years of refusing to act on ethics reform," Durbin said. "Its new code of conduct is a step, but it falls short of what we could and should expect from a code of conduct."
The Supreme Court's new code of conduct lays out a series of criteria for when justices should recuse themselves, when it's appropriate for them to attend events, and more.
Notably missing from the code of conduct are any consequences in the event a justice doesn't follow it. As Business Insider previously reported, the code of conduct is also seemingly toothless as the language used in it is strikingly softer, oftentimes replacing "should" where "shall" would typically be.
Durbin's critique of the Supreme Court isn't anything new. Following months of reports alleging ethical missteps by Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, and Samuel Alito, the senator repeatedly slammed the high court, saying it "should not have the lowest ethical standards."
Durbin and his Democratic colleagues in the Senate previously tried unsuccessfully to get Congress to impose a code of conduct onto the Supreme Court, facing backlash from Alito along the way.
"No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period," Alito said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in July.