September 26, 2024

Wyden Introduces Sweeping Court Reforms to Restore Public Trust as Supreme Court Faces Legitimacy Crisis

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today announced the introduction of new legislation to restore balance among the three branches of government, increase transparency to improve public trust in America’s courts, and modernize the courts to ensure greater access to justice for more Americans.

In the wake of recent rulings upending decades of precedent and evidence of unethical behavior, Wyden’s Judicial Modernization and Transparency Act would modernize the courts by expanding the Supreme Court to 15 justices over three presidential terms, prevent political inaction from bottling up nominations to the Supreme Court, and restore appropriate deference to the legislative branch by requiring a supermajority to overturn acts of Congress, among other modernizing provisions to improve access to justice. 

The bill would also implement much-needed reforms to bring more accountability to the Supreme Court recusal process and improve transparency around potential financial conflicts and other unethical behavior.

“The Supreme Court is in crisis and bold solutions are necessary to restore the public trust,” Wyden said. “More transparency, more accountability and more checks on a power hungry Supreme Court are just what the American people are asking for.”

The bill modernizes the federal judiciary by:

  • Expanding the Supreme Court to 15 justices.

    • The expansion is staggered over a total of 12 years with a president getting to appoint one nominee in the first and third years of each presidential term.

  • Establishing a new supermajority threshold to overturn acts of Congress on a constitutional basis at both the Supreme Court and Circuit Court level.

  • Requiring that relief granted by lower courts in cases seeking to invalidate an act of Congress expire upon the issuing date of an opinion by the Supreme Court.

  • Establishing a new process for Supreme Court nominations that are not reported out of committee within 180 calendar days to be automatically placed on the Senate calendar.

  • Expanding the number of circuit courts to 15 and returning to the practice of assigning one Supreme Court justice to oversee each circuit.

  • Expanding the number of circuits by splitting the Ninth Circuit and establishing a new Southwestern Circuit.

  • Expanding the number of Circuit Court and District Court judgeships to improve access to justice.

The bill increases transparency to improve public trust by:

  • Requiring all justices to consider recusal motions and make their written opinions publically available. Any justice would be recused from a case upon the affirmative vote of the justices.

  • Requiring the public disclosure of how each justice voted for any case within the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

  • Requiring the IRS to initiate an audit of each justice's income tax return (and any amended return) as quickly as practicable after it is filed. Within 90 days of filing, the IRS would be required to publicly release the returns and provide an update on the status of the audit. Every 180 days thereafter, the IRS must update the public on the status of the audit. It will also release the ultimate findings of the audit.

  • Requiring those nominated to the Court to include their most recent three years of tax returns in their publicly-available financial disclosure filings. In the case that a nominee does not disclose the tax returns within 15 days after nomination, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts would be instructed to obtain the tax returns from the Secretary of the Treasury and make them public. The Secretary of the Treasury is instructed to redact certain personal identity information.

A one-pager summarizing the bill is here.

A section-by-section of the legislative text is here.

The legislative text is here.

In July, as part of his ongoing efforts to reform and restore fairness to our country’s judicial system, Wyden introduced legislation to restore much-needed checks on Donald Trump’s radical right-wing Supreme Court by providing Congress with new authority to overturn judicial decisions that clearly undermine the congressional intent of laws following the Loper Bright decision. He also also introduced legislation to bring an end to the controversial practice of “judge shopping,” in which plaintiffs cherry-pick judges they know will hand down favorable rulings, leading to sweeping rulings that wield undue power over millions of Americans.

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