Friday, January 23, 2004
San Jose Mercury News: When the U.S. Supreme Court this spring considers a dispute between the vice president of the United States and the Sierra Club, one of the parties in the case will recently have been duck-hunting with one of the justices.
Here's a hint. It ain't the Sierra Club.
In January, Justice Antonin Scalia joined Vice President Dick Cheney and seven others on a hunting trip in Louisiana. The two are longtime friends. Scalia dismisses any concern about a conflict of interest, making the case a two-fer in illustrating the arrogance of power.
First from Cheney. He is resisting a lower court order that he release the names of people and organizations that met with an energy task force he was directing. The secrecy is being challenged by the Sierra Club and an activist organization Judicial Watch.
Their contention is that representatives of the energy industry received special access to the vice president (yes, we know, it shocked us too).
Conflict of interest
Second is Scalia's rejection of any appearance of a conflict of interest.
"I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned," Scalia told the Los Angeles Times, which reported the hunting trip. "Social contacts with high-level executive officials (including Cabinet officers) have never been thought improper for judges who may have before them cases in which those people are involved in their official capacity, as opposed to their personal capacity."
Experts in legal ethics don't think that distinction exonerates Scalia. Even if Scalia's longstanding friendship with Cheney doesn't require that he sit this case out, he should have respected appearances and skipped a hunting trip with vice president three weeks after the Supreme Court took the case.
It is a case about a public official who has turned his back on the need to appear impartial.