Towards A New Banana Republic?

On April 24th, former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo returned to Lima in handcuffs and was immediately incarcerated on charges of corruption during his term in office. He joined five of his predecessors in jail for similar crimes during their mandates.  

The term “banana republic” has often been used pejoratively to describe the kind of institutionalized corruption and incompetent leadership rampant in Latin America and Africa. 

But today, I am not using the term with respect to Latin America or Africa.

Rather, I use it with respect to the United States, and the situation involving that country’s Supreme Court. And my main point is that the U.S. Congress must impose strict ethical guidelines for Supreme Court Justices in order to avoid drifting into a banana republic mode.

In recent years, the Court has seen some questionable appointments to its benches, especially under Republican presidents.

The first was Clarence Thomas, accused of sexual misconduct by his former assistant Anita Hill. Recently, it has come to light that he has accepted very expensive gifts from billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow. Gifts included trips that Thomas ever disclosed – a federal crime. As well, Crow also purchased three Georgia properties from Thomas that the Justice never disclosed.

Thomas’s wife Ginni reportedly accepted $600,000 from a variety of donors through the right-wing think tank Capital Research Center to fight what she described as cultural Marxism. She also allegedly contacted the White House to press then Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to overturn the 2020 election results. While she is not on the bench herself, her behavior calls into question the Justice’s judgment and his wife’s refusal to behave in an appropriate manner.

Right before Thanksgiving, the New York Times reported some disturbing news about the Supreme Court: In 2014, Justice Samuel Alito allegedly leaked the impending decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby to anti-choice lobbyists weeks before the Court publicly issued it. 

If these allegations are proven to be true, this would underscore the concerns of many that some conservative judges are working with right-wing Christian groups and may be undermining the credibility and independence of the Court.  

Justice Neil Gorsuch sold a $1.8 million property he co-owned to a lawyer whose firm had 22 cases before the Supreme Court. 

According to POLITICO, The chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, Brian Duffy, one of the nation’s biggest law firms with many cases before the high court purchased the property nine days after Gorsuch was sworn in. Gorsuch owned the property with two other individuals and the Gorsuch did not disclose the identity of the purchaser. 

Gorsuch then joined five conservative justices to rule in favor of a lawsuit brought by Duffy’s firm among others reversing parts of President Obama’s Clean Air Act.

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a frequent critic of Supreme Court ethics rules, sent a statement responding to POLITICO’s inquiry about Gorsuch’s sale of the Colorado property.

“We have seen a steady stream of revelations regarding Supreme Court Justices falling short of the ethical standards expected of other federal judges and of public servants,” said Durbin. “The need for Supreme Court ethics reform is clear, and if the Court does not take adequate action, Congress must. The Senate Judiciary Committee will be closely examining these matters in the coming weeks,” said Durbin, who has asked Chief Justice John Roberts to testify next month on the court’s ethics rules. 

Roberts has declined to testify.

According to FORBES, Jane Roberts, the wife of Chief Justice John Roberts, made more than $10 million in commissions over an eight-year stretch where she matched top lawyers with elite law firms—including some that had cases before the Supreme Court—according to documents obtained by Insider, as concerns grow about justices possibly having unreported conflicts of interest.

The Supreme Court of the United States functions with no oversight or ethical control. The Chief Justice appears weak and reluctant to create and enforce a strong code of ethics to ensure that Justices of the Supreme court are held to the same standards as judges on other benches.

The Court appears to be unable or unwilling to police itself and give the American electorate a Court that is above reproach.

And this is the very basis of a banana republic – a country where the institutions of governance and justice are corrupt and unwilling to impose upon themselves the ethics oversight that is compulsory for judges at other levels of the judiciary.

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Edition: Estefanía Cardeña