On my birthday today, please consider subscribing to Nomination Notes, where I cover issues related to federal judicial nominations & judicial diversity — sharing perspectives and asking questions that aren’t being raised elsewhere. Please share — it would mean a lot <3 nominationnotes.substack.com

Fix the Court is 1 of the only, if not the only, org. working on: — Free PACER legislation — A judicial gift ban — Workplace conduct reform — Exposing *all* A3 judges' conflicts — Increasing court security funds If you appreciate our work, plz consider a Giving Tuesday gift fixthecourt.com/donate.

RFK Jr: "Two weeks ago we ended, under your leadership, a twenty year war on women". Three out of five men in this shot have been accused of sexual misconduct, harassment or abusive behaviour towards women. A fourth signed into law a near-total abortion ban in his state as governor.

Fix the Court is 1 of the only, if not the only, org. working on: — Free PACER legislation — A judicial gift ban — Workplace conduct reform — Exposing *all* A3 judges' conflicts — Increasing court security funds If you appreciate our work, plz consider a Giving Tuesday gift fixthecourt.com/donate.

State supreme courts have seen minimal improvements in the racial and gender diversity of their jurists, as new justices have been disproportionately white and male, with even less progress made in seating justices with varied professional experiences.

A Court of International Trade judge files what appears to be an ordinary opinion. But months later, a government commission comes along & argues that parts of the opinion *should be sealed*. Say what now? It's an interesting case study on court transparency: fixthecourt.com/2025/11/a-ju....

Meanwhile, Trump worsens the situation with his vitriol. #SCOTUS www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

ICYMI, America First Legal was in D.D.C. yesterday arguing that FOIA applies to the AO & Judicial Conference; AFL believes they can use FOIA to get Dems' emails to the judiciary about Justice Thomas' ethics issues. (It doesn't & they can't.) More here: fixthecourt.com/2025/11/part....

Another unnerving thing about Deputy AG Blanche's "it's war, man" comments? He works at the very agency that manages judicial security. We hope Main Justice isn't telling the US Marshals which judges to favor in their coverage plans but can't be too sure. A good reason to move USMS to Article III.

One of the nominees, Megan Benton, is the daughter of Eighth Circuit Judge Duane Benton, who announced a little over a week ago that he was retiring and giving Trump another powerful court of appeals seat to fill. Interesting timing.

If Supreme Court justices aren't "partisan," which they're quick to remind us every time they speak in public, then why would they announce their new book on a *partisan media outlet*? And why would they pick an illustrator who draws for Focus on the Family? chrisellisonstudio.com/section/5462...

New: A California federal judge in a first has dismissed a criminal case after finding that the defendant's constitutional right to counsel was violated by a funding shortfall that left private attorneys who serve as court-appointed defense lawyers unpaid since July. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

Today is Fix the Court's 11th anniversary! Since 2014, #SCOTUS has started livestreaming its arguments, adopted an ethics code, posted justices' disclosures online & has started to care more about their ethical stewardship. There's much more to do, but that's not a bad start!

"Our President, who should be leading the defense of the Judicial Branch, is, in fact, leading the assaults." —former federal judge ➡️ thefulcrum.us/rule-of-law/...

The #SCOTUS ethics code turns 2 tomorrow. Some justices have taken steps to improve their ethical stewardship in that time, while others have opted to continue engaging in ethically dubious behavior. Here's an overview of where things stand: fixthecourt.com/2025/11/the-....

#BREAKING: Over a public dissent from Justice Jackson, #SCOTUS *extends* the temporary pause of the district court’s order that had mandated full SNAP payments for November—keeping that ruling (and those payments) on hold through the end of the day this Thursday:

New: The Supreme Court DENIES Kim Davis' request to overturn Obergefell, the marriage equality decision. No noted dissents. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

KBJ threaded the needle thanks to CA1’s unfinished business. -if she denied the admin stay, the full SCOTUS woulda stepped in to override her. -if she immediately referred the case to the full Court, they coulda dragged feet. -instead she boxed them in to act quickly once she does refer the case.

Referring the admin’s emergency petition to the whole court would have slowed down getting the payments out. We expect a First Circuit decision within the next day, day and a half. Monday a.m. tops. Stay tuned.

Kinda crazy how 28% of the justices' recusals so far this term are a result of Martha Ann Alito not wanting to sell the stock she inherited from her dad, who died in 2012 docs.google.com/spreadsheets.... Justices (& lower court judges & MoCs) should not own individual companies' stock!

New #SCOTUS justice events now in our tracker: — Alito & Breyer in the U.K. — Kavanaugh & Barrett at FedSoc — Alito at the Italian Embassy fixthecourt.com/2025/11/scot...

Very yep — "This Court has once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification" (from J. Jackson's dissent from the stay grant in Trump v. Orr, just handed down) www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p.... Time for shadow docket reform!

Really important under-the-radar case in the Fed. Circuit at 10 a.m ET today, concerning the extent to which lower courts can redact part of **an opinion** when one of the parties makes a stink about it. Listen live: cafc.uscourts.gov/home/oral-ar....

We're going with the "it was my wife" explanation again here? SMH www.foxnews.com/politics/dem...

Please sign up for our email list at fixthecourt.com/sign-up. It's 1-2 per month, tops, including 1 going out later this morning!

S.D. Ohio Judge Watson (taking sr. status 11/1) refused to recuse in the Strauss investigation despite teaching at OSU & his wife making $ from licensing OSU merch. Meanwhile in WV, a judge recused in a WVU case bc he's a fan of its bball team 🤯 storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... @free.law.

Not a surprising move given the shutdown, but this week the judiciary stopped adding judges' financial disclosure reports & stock transaction reports to its online database pub.jefs.uscourts.gov

The American people do not have confidence in the Roberts Court. Only 21% say they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the Court; 79% say they have "very little" or only "some" confidence. (Economist/YouGov, n=1623) d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/ec...

The government is shutdown but the justices' brisque speaking calendar is not. We've added to our list fixthecourt.com/2025/10/scot...: — Thomas at Stanford, Alito in the U.K. & Barrett at the Folger Library last week — Kennedy tonight in Sacramento — Jackson at Social Studies convention in Dec.

Posting this here since, sadly, it may be taken down at some point (diversity is a strength in LEAs; not a weakness!)

Crazy this was 4 years ago. They should've listened to us + @pogo.org then! www.pogo.org/policy-lette...

In a C-SPAN interview scheduled to air on Sunday, Justice Barrett throws cold water on the idea that justices' records would get released to the public before they die fixthecourt.com/2025/10/just.... Clip is here www.youtube.com/watch?v=unVE....

It can't be that the 8th Amendment permits death by nitrogen hypoxia, esp. with other methods of capital punishment available. Don't just take our word for it — read Justice Sotomayor's dissent from yesterday (& in the end, it took Anthony Boyd 20 min. to die) www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p....

NEW POLL: "Most Americans (75%) agree there should be term limits for Supreme Court justices, while less than 1/4 disagree (22%). "Most Democrats (85%), independents (76%) & Republicans (67%) say there should be #SCOTUS term limits," prri.org/research/tru..., h/t @scotusblog.com.

We're on the case — the case of the missing opinion announcement audio: fixthecourt.com/2025/10/wher....

Want to save SCOTUS 200K/yr, which could go toward paying the justices during the shutdown? Take away Kennedy's & Breyer's clerks & office space. AMK isn't doing any judging — just writing pablum. SGB's done a total of 1 CA1 sitting + has an office in Cambridge he can work at.

Looks like some folks still have the affliction of writing, "A federal judge did X," without including the name of the case or a link to its docket on @free.law's Courtlistener. Do better, please!

Now updated: The 'Presumption of Regularity' study. 1. Noncompliance with judicial orders: 20 cases 2. Courts’ distrust of DOJ information: 43+ cases 3. Courts’ findings of “arbitrary and capricious” conduct: 58 cases www.justsecurity.org/120547/presu...

Hear me out: we need to create space for the conservatives on the Supreme Court to realize that Trump v. US was a huge mistake and to take steps to rein it in Creating this permission structure would have to be a serious enterprise among legal elites for it to work www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

FTC, in an organizational first, urges cert. grant ahead of key Friday conference at #SCOTUS. The facts are INSANE, with cops so corrupt that David Simon made a show about it, but hopefully the justices take it up & fix this issue. More here: fixthecourt.com/2025/10/fix-....

Even when you’re on the Supreme Court, it’s super easy to just not go on Fox News.

"Forty-two judges went so far as to say that the Supreme Court’s emergency orders had caused 'some' or 'major' harm to the public’s perception of the judiciary[,] [including] nearly half of the Republican-nominated judges." gift link 👉 www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

Our message at the start of a new Supreme Court term: fixthecourt.com/2025/10/ftcs....

OT25 just started & we've already had some recusals docs.google.com/spreadsheets...: — All justices but Jackson have recused — Kagan is only one to explain hers — Alito leads with 4 (of 11 total), all due to his/Martha Ann's stocks — 5 due to prior judge/SG work — 2 due to a justice being sued

The "Simon Standard" and the Non-Recusals of Justice Thomas fixthecourt.com/2025/10/the-...

Pretty sad — albeit not at all surprising — that a random federal judge in Oregon has higher ethical standards than the justices of the Supreme Court.

New: How each justice can improve the Court's ethical character in OT25 fixthecourt.com/2025/10/what.... 👇 Roberts: ❌Smithsonian Thomas: portrait $$ Alito: PTR fine Sotomayor: ❌name on fundraiser Kagan: make ethics pitch Gorsuch: shadow docket clarity Kavanaugh: consistency ACB/KBJ: book tour parity

Read our exclusive updates on judicial security, recusals, disclosures, #SCOTUS book tours & more: fixthecourt.com/2025/09/our-...