News Clips

"Americans expect and deserve a fair and impartial Supreme Court and we need transparency in order to identify potential conflicts and to restore public trust in our nation’s highest court,” Common Cause co-president Marilyn Carpinteyro said earlier this week, before the latest revelation. "The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly proven itself incapable of policing itself without a code of ethics."

"I wouldn't be surprised if they just went through the kabuki theater, and we actually end up with exactly the same maps," Catherine Turcer, the executive director of Common Cause Ohio, which campaigns against partisan redistricting, said of the commission.

The courts should be above partisan politics, said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a good government group. Voters shouldn’t assume that a Republican majority will mean that big business will always win or that a Democratic majority will favor labor unions. “At the end of the day we want these courts to be independent and impartial and not be caught up in partisan elections,” she said. “And now we have the party labels, so that makes it different.” Since Brunner and Kennedy are sitting Supreme Court justices, people can make comparisons based on how they ruled in cases, Turcer said. “There are things that people can compare and contrast,” Turcer said. “It’s incredibly important for all of us to pay attention to the Ohio Supreme court because of voting rights, redistricting and mapmaking and because of the rights for women to make choices.”

Law professor Michele Goodwin shared the 2011 article from The Los Angeles Times on Twitter on Monday and tagged Common Cause, the watchdog group that initially reported on Thomas' failure to disclose his wife's income from the Heritage Foundation. Retweeting Goodwin, Common Cause wrote: "We reviewed Justice Thomas' financial disclosure filings years ago and found that he failed to disclose his wife's income ($686,589) from the Heritage Foundation. We'll keep calling out Ginni Thomas until we have an ethical Supreme Court."

Redistricting is a hyper-partisan issue in the state that’s likely to have a direct but unpredictable impact on the races this year, said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio. Only one Republican justice, Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, ruled against the GOP-controlled Ohio Redistricting Commission. She must retire this year due to age restrictions, meaning a new GOP replacement could clear the legislature to draw lines without court interference. Turcer noted this is the first time justices are running with their party affiliations on the ballot.

Karen Hobert Flynn, president of the progressive group Common Cause, said after the high court‘s string of conservative rulings on guns and abortion, Justice Jackson joining the court gives a “ray of hope” to the nation. “The Court is desperately in need of a boost,” she said.  “With the reputation of the Court in tatters, Justice Jackson’s swearing-in is a monumental step forward, and represents a ray of hope that our nation’s highest court may once again deliver equal justice under the law.”