Can You Make A Speech At A FedSoc Event Look More Inappropriate? It Turns Out You Can!
Justice Gorsuch speech closed to the press, making the whole thing just that little bit more shady!
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
On the heels of Chief Justice Roberts writing a comically contemptuous report chastising anyone who dared suggest that the federal judiciary might need stricter ethical oversight, Neil Gorsuch is headlining a Florida Federalist Society event along with Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis, and Kayleigh McEnany.
Was John Eastman not available?
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Appearing at an overtly political event raises “appearance of impropriety” flags, but the justice could temper the criticism by delivering some balanced and genuinely apolitical remarks. Justice Stevens spoke at the ACS annual conference years ago and delivered a straightforward discussion about a recent decision. It’s not necessarily inappropriate to speak to an ideologically slanted group, as long as the remarks remain appropriately apolitical.
But maybe this isn’t the time to push the envelope when public regard for the Court is in the toilet, Amy Coney Barrett just caught a heap of justified flack for trying to spin the Court’s neutrality at a Mitch McConnell event, and everyone is whipped into a partisan frenzy over the next Supreme Court justice.
Maybe sit out the next few openly conservative speaking engagements right now, Neil!
However, Neil sees the reputational damage ACB did to the Court and asks Brett Kavanaugh to hold his beer. It seems Neil’s takeaway from the ACB/McConnell flap wasn’t that she made a mockery of judicial independence, but that she got caught doing it.
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So Gorsuch’s speech will be closed to the press, ratcheting up concerns that a guy gifted his job by a nakedly partisan process plans to spit partisan fire that he doesn’t want showing up in the news the next day. Or maybe Gorsuch just doesn’t want anyone to notice whether or not he wears a mask at the event, given that the facility’s rules require masks indoors and Gorsuch has zero regard for any of your basic public safety standards.
Whatever the case, Gorsuch took a shady, ethically iffy decision and made it way worse. Maybe he’s going to give a dry account of the importance of the rule of law, but we’re never going to know it wasn’t a back-slapping session about overturning the Voting Rights Act because there won’t be anyone there to report it.
Which, of course, will never come up again when John Roberts has to defend how perfectly above reproach his judiciary is. No such thing as Trump judges or Obama judges, indeed!
Earlier: Chief Justice Wants You To Know He Has The Utmost Contempt For You
We’re Not ‘Partisan Hacks,’ Says Partisan Hack At Partisan Event
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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
