CBS News
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson says she’s open to enforceable ethics code for Supreme Court
Washington — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she does not “have any problem” with an enforceable ethics code for the Supreme Court, as the nation’s highest court continues to face questions over its ethics practices amid calls from Democrats for stricter rules.
In an interview with “CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell for “CBS Sunday Morning,” Jackson suggested she is open to a means of enforcing the code of conduct issued by the Supreme Court in November 2023.
“I am considering supporting it as a general matter,” she told O’Donnell of an enforcement mechanism. “I’m not going to get into commenting on particular policy proposals. But from my perspective, I don’t have any problem with an enforceable code.”
Jackson’s remarks were made during her first broadcast interview since she joined the court in June 2022. She is the first Black female justice. The interview came ahead of the release of her memoir, “Lovely One,” which will be available Tuesday.
CBS News
Jackson said a binding ethics code is “pretty standard” for judges on the nation’s district and appeals courts. Federal judges have been subject to a code of conduct since 1973, but it does not cover Supreme Court justices. The court, for the first time in its history, implemented its own conduct code last November after years of weighing whether to have one, but it does not contain an enforcement mechanism.
Jackson noted that she was bound by an enforceable code during her time on the lower courts.
“And so I guess the question is, ‘Is the Supreme Court any different?’ And I guess I have not seen a persuasive reason as to why the court is different than the other courts,” she said.
The lack of a way to enforce the Supreme Court’s ethics rules has prompted scrutiny from President Biden, who last month proposed a binding code of conduct as part of a trio of plans to reform the high court. The president has called the court’s current ethics measures “weak and self-enforced.”
Justice Elena Kagan became the first sitting member to publicly advocate for a way to enforce the new rules when she said such a system “would make sense” during remarks at an annual judicial conference last month.
Over the last 16 months, the Supreme Court has come under scrutiny from Congress over its ethics practices, driven by a series of articles from the investigative news outlet ProPublica about Justice Clarence Thomas’ relationship with Harlan Crow, a Texas real estate developer and billionaire Republican donor.
ProPublica found that Thomas accepted luxury vacations from Crow and traveled aboard his private jet and yacht during his tenure on the Supreme Court, trips that were not included on his annual financial disclosure forms.
Thomas said last year that he did not believe he had to list the trips, since he had been advised they were considered personal hospitality from a close friend and therefore not reportable under the rules at the time. Disclosure guidelines were changed last March by the Judicial Conference, the policy-making body of the federal judiciary, and the justice pledged to comply with the new requirements.
In his 2023 financial disclosure report, Thomas listed trips aboard Crow’s private jet and a stay at his property in the Adirondacks, and reported a 2014 real estate transaction with the Republican megadonor. His most recent disclosure form, released to the public in June, included an amendment listing two trips taken with Crow in 2019: to Bali and Monte Rio, California.
Still, Democratic senators investigating Thomas’ compliance with ethics policies said they uncovered even more undisclosed travel, including three trips the justice took on Crow’s private jet between 2017 and 2021 and a roundtrip flight from Hawaii to New Zealand in November 2010.
Justice Samuel Alito has also faced criticism for a fishing trip taken with a wealthy Republican donor in 2008 and for two flags flown outside his Virginia home and New Jersey vacation house. Both kinds of flags — an upside-down American flag and “Appeal to Heaven” flag — were carried by rioters who breached the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. Alito maintained that he was not involved in the flying of the flags and did not know their meaning. He rejected calls to recuse himself from cases before the court related to Jan. 6.
The scrutiny over the Supreme Court’s ethics practices has led to heightened interest in the justices’ disclosure forms, which are filed annually and reflect their outside positions, income, reimbursements, gifts and investments for the prior calendar year.
For her part, Jackson reported receiving four concert tickets from singer Beyoncé, valued at $3,711, and artwork for her chambers worth $10,000 and $2,500 in 2023. She also disclosed receiving congratulatory flowers from Oprah Winfrey valued at $1,200, a designer dress and jacket worn in a Vogue photo shoot worth $6,580 and a $580 painting in 2022, the year Jackson joined the Supreme Court.
The reporting of the gifts was in compliance with federal ethics rules that require judges to list information on items they receive that are valued at $480 or more.
Jackson told O’Donnell that she believes it’s important to follow the rules regarding ethical obligations because it ensures the public can trust that judges are being impartial when hearing and deciding cases.
“It really boils down to impartiality. That’s what the rules are about,” she said. “People are entitled to know if you’re accepting gifts as a judge so that they can evaluate whether or not your opinions are impartial. And I think that’s sort of standard in the law.”
Jackson told O’Donnell that it is “very concerning” that public trust in the Supreme Court has fallen in recent years. An August survey from the Pew Research Center conducted just after the court issued the final decisions of its term found that fewer than half of Americans, 47%, have a favorable opinion of the high court. It’s a slight uptick from 2023, when 44% of Americans viewed the Supreme Court favorably — a historic low.
“The Supreme Court is the branch of government that doesn’t have the power of the military. We don’t have the power of the purse. We have no way to get people to follow our rulings,” Jackson said, echoing the view of retired Justice Stephen Breyer, her mentor. “What we have or should have is a commitment to the rule of law by the people of this country, and a trust that the court is doing what is necessary to safeguard the rule of law.”
See also:
Watch more of Norah O’Donnell’s interview with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on “Person to Person,” streaming on Thursday, Sept. 5, at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS News 24/7 and Paramount+.
For more info:
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Ever since Babe Ruth was waddling around the bases, there have been grim predictions about baseball’s future: Time has passed on the national pastime, too leisurely, too bucolic. Last year’s World Series TV ratings, and this season’s batting averages, both hit 50-year lows. Baseball, they say, is dying.
But never mind the current World Series between two of the game’s stalwarts, the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Want to feel better about baseball’s health? Just go to a Milwaukee Brewers game.
There, in Major League Baseball’s smallest market, cheese curds sweat under floodlights, frozen custard unspools into batting helmets, hometown Miller flows liberally, and on the stadium’s second level is the most authentic Milwaukee touch of all: the broadcaster they call “Mr. Baseball.”
CBS News
In six undistinguished seasons as a catcher in the majors, Bob Uecker never played an inning for the Brewers. But during half a century as the team’s play-by-play announcer, he’s become equal parts mayor and mascot in the city of his birth, all the while declining offers from bigger markets – laying off pitches, as it were.
In the 1980s Yankees owner George Steinbrenner tried to recruit Uecker. “Steinbrenner sent a couple of people out to talk to me about joining the Yankees,” he said, “but I loved Milwaukee. Born and raised here!”
Uecker began his major league career in 1962 with the Milwaukee Braves before the franchise moved to Atlanta. “I was the first player from Milwaukee to ever be signed by the Braves,” he said. “I was also the first Milwaukee native to be sent to the minor leagues by the Braves!”
If Uecker’s on-field inadequacies hampered his playing career, they’ve provided some of his best material in a lengthy and lucrative second career as an actor and comedian. Employing a bone-dry wit, he made more than 40 appearances on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.”
He said, “I did ‘Tonight Shows,’ you know, whenever they wanted. I would leave here on a Sunday afternoon, fly to L.A., do the Monday night show, take a red-eye back here, and be here for Tuesday’s game.”
Johnny Carson: “Give me, fast as you can, all the teams you’ve ever played with.”
Uecker: “Braves, Cardinals, Phillies, and the Braves again. Then, in June, I was with …”
The Carson guest spots led to a series of notable TV commercials, as well as a starring sitcom role, and perhaps most memorably as Harry Doyle, the perpetually blitzed announcer in the “Major League” movies. This past summer, at Milwaukee’s American Family Field, “Harry Doyle Bobblehead Night” brought the Uecker faithful out in force.
Asked his favorite “Bob Uecker line,” he replied, “‘Juuuuust a bit outside.’ That’s where my wife put me a lotta times!”
CBS News
Before serving 16 years as baseball’s commissioner, Bud Selig owned the Brewers, and, in 1971, hired Uecker, misguidedly, as a scout. Selig said it is “legitimately true” that Uecker wasn’t cut out to be a scout. “There were mashed potatoes on the damned scouting report. I couldn’t read it. He couldn’t read it,” he said.
So, Selig moved Uecker to the Brewers’ broadcast booth later that year.
Today there’s even a statue honoring Uecker, where else? In the very last row of the upper deck, behind a pole.
CBS News
But for all the stardom, all the gigs and gags, the late-night-laughs at his own expense, Uecker still fancies himself a player, says Brewers pitcher Brandon Woodruff: “He lets us know about his catching days. He’s one of us. He’s part of the team. And I think that’s why we embrace him so much, is that he’s on this ride with us. And that’s what makes it cool.”
According to Uecker, he has a bond with the players on the field: “I played the game. So, I know how hard it is. I know how tough it is to play this game. The game celebrations, when we win, that’s a big part of it, man, to be able to walk into that clubhouse and be with ’em.”
But baseball is cruel, and in Milwaukee, celebrations are short-lived. Earlier this month, with the Brewers just two outs from winning the National League Wild Card Series, the New York Mets came from behind on a dramatic home run.
On the radio, Uecker didn’t hide the hurt: “I’m tellin’ ya, that one … had some sting on it.”
The Brewers’ first World Series title will have to wait.
There’s speculation that the heartbreaking loss may have marked Uecker’s last game as an announcer. But as his 91st birthday nears, the man they call “Mr. Baseball” told us he doesn’t want to imagine his life without it.
“I don’t know what I would do, you know, with no more. If I think of no more baseball for me, I don’t know what that would be like, you know?” Uecker said. “I got out of high school and I joined the Army. And I signed a baseball contact. That’s been it, really!”
For more info:
Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.