Supreme Court updates rules to help find ‘potential conflicts for the justices’
The Supreme Court has updated its rules to help identify potential conflicts for the justices,with changes taking effect March 16. The reforms require petitioners to list the stock ticker symbols of any company involved in the case and, for nongovernmental respondents, to disclose corporate parents or ownership of 10% or more by a publicly held company. The updates are designed to support the Court’s new electronic conflict-checking system and to tighten facts filed by litigants. The changes come amid occasional recusals tied to justices’ financial holdings,such as Justice Alito’s recusal from a Louisiana coastal erosion case over ConocoPhillips interests and his prior recusal related to Chevron USA v. Plaquemines Parish. Democrats have criticized the Court over undisclosed gifts and have pressed for an ethics code, which the Court has said it would adopt. The Court is expected to issue at least one ruling soon and will hear a challenge to late-arriving ballot laws in March.
Supreme Court updates rules to help find ‘potential conflicts for the justices’
The Supreme Court announced Tuesday it updated its rules of the court in an effort to help justices avoid conflicts of interest with parties before them.
The rule changes, effective March 16, will require parties in petitions filed with the Supreme Court to list the stock ticker symbol of any company that is a party to the case, among other changes, which “will serve in addition to existing conflict-checking procedures in chambers.”
“Most of the changes are designed to support operation of newly developed software that will assist in identifying potential conflicts for the Justices, and the revisions impose a number of new requirements upon filers to support the software,” the high court said in a press release.
The updated rules also state that “where a respondent is a nongovernmental corporation and it has a parent corporation or a publicly held company owns 10% or more of the corporation’s stock,” those affiliations must be reported in the brief or the waiver.
The rule changes are “designed to support the Court’s electronic conflict-checking system by requiring a respondent to correct any deficiencies in the Parties to the Proceeding section of the petition, and by including information about corporate parents,” per the high court.
The changes come as some justices have recused themselves from recent cases because of their financial holdings, with Justice Samuel Alito recusing himself from a case involving Louisiana coastal erosion because of his holdings in ConocoPhillips earlier this year.
Alito recused himself ahead of January’s arguments in Chevron USA v. Plaquemines Parish, with the high court’s clerk saying in a letter that Alito believed Burlington Resources Oil and Gas Company, which is owned by ConocoPhillips, had removed itself from the case, but that “later briefing, however, noted that Burlington remained a party in the district court.”
SUPREME COURT WILL HEAR CHALLENGE TO LATE-ARRIVING BALLOT LAWS IN MARCH
The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has also faced criticism from Democrats over reports of undisclosed gifts given to justices in recent years, with Democrats demanding reforms to the high court. The Supreme Court announced it would adopt an ethics code in November 2023, but criticisms from Democrats have not relented.
The justices will return to the bench Friday when they are expected to announce at least one ruling, followed by oral arguments scheduled for the first three days of next week.
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