Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's staff has often nudged public institutions, including colleges and libraries, to purchase her memoir or children's books, according to an Associated Press report that conducted more than 100 open records requests.
Sotomayor, 69, has amassed at least $3.7 million in book sales since she joined the court in 2009. Throughout that time, the justice has spoken at dozens of public and private institutions and has often used members of her staff, who are funded by taxpayers, to push these institutions to purchase her books, according to tens of thousands of pages of documents obtained.
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The records reveal repeated examples of Supreme Court staff performing tasks for the justice's book ventures despite workers in other branches of the government being barred from doing such tasks. Because the Supreme Court does not have a formal or enforceable code of ethics, there's no tangible repercussion for this type of conduct.
For example, at Clemson University in South Carolina before a 2017 appearance, school officials offered to buy 60 signed copies of one of Sotomayor's books. Her staff noted that most schools order around 400, according to one email exchange.
One year later, Michigan State University asked the justice to come to campus and spent more than $100,000 on copies of her memoir My Beloved World to distribute to incoming first-year students. The books were shipped to the Supreme Court, where copies were taken to her chambers by court workers and signed by her before they were sent to the school.
Sotomayor, an appointee of former President Barack Obama who makes $285,400 per year based on her court salary alone, is not the only justice earning money by writing books.
The records obtained by the Associated Press also revealed that ahead of Justice Elena Kagan's visit to the University of Colorado Law School in 2019, one official in Boulder suggested a "large donor to staff ratio" for a dinner with Kagan.
“The justices should be aware that people are selling access to them,” University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost, an ethics expert, told the outlet. “I don’t think they are naive, but they certainly have been putting themselves in situations where people can credibly claim, ’I’m giving you access,’ or ‘I’m going to fundraise off my claimed closeness or access.’ And that is a problem.”
Under the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, which is enforceable for lower court federal judges, it cautions them against “lend[ing] the prestige of the judicial office to advance” their “private interests.”
The Supreme Court's Public Information Office released a statement to the Associated Press saying it works with the justices and the staff to ensure they are “complying with judicial ethics guidance for such visits.”
“When (Sotomayor) is invited to participate in a book program, Chambers staff recommends the number of books (for an organization to order) based on the size of the audience so as not to disappoint attendees who may anticipate books being available at an event,” the court said.
The Supreme Court also noted in the statement that "The Court routinely asks event organizers to confirm that an event at which a Justice will speak is not a fundraiser, and it provides a definition of ‘fundraiser’ in order to avoid misunderstandings.”
“The Court then follows up with event organizers to elicit further information as appropriate,” the statement said. “The Court’s practice has been useful: Justices have declined to be featured at events even though event organizers expressly told Chambers that the events were not fundraisers, following additional inquiry by the Court that confirmed them to be fundraisers.”
The revelations about the process in which justices deliberate and engage in book sales ahead of their public appearances offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the justices as they attempt to balance their professional lives with their own private interests, as several legal ethics experts warned the lack of an enforceable ethics code leaves justices with no "common reference point," according to retired federal Judge Jeremy Fogel, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton.
Earlier this year, Justice Clarence Thomas was subject to a series of ethics reports after it was revealed he did not disclose expensive and lavish vacations he took that were paid by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.
Since then, almost every justice on the Supreme Court has been scrutinized over their past actions, including Justice Samuel Alito, who was revealed to have taken a 2008 Alaskan fishing trip and a flight on a private jet with billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who later had an interest in a 2014 case between Singer's hedge fund and the country of Argentina.
Thomas and Alito have denied wrongdoing, with both of the justices offering rare responses that essentially downplay any allegations of breached protocols written in the reports by investigative outlet ProPublica.
Notably, Thomas and Alito delayed filing annual financial disclosure forms on June 7. The pair were allowed a 90-day extension to file the forms, which marked the fourth year in a row Alito has received an extension.
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Allegations of ethical lapses by Republican-appointed members of the high court have riled up Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
Those lawmakers announced on Monday that the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, a measure aimed to enhance ethics adherence on the high court, will get a vote in the committee on July 20.