在相对罕见的公开露面中，美国最高法院的大法官经常声称对政治和公共政策不可知论者。
“法院是一个法律机构，不是政治机构，也不是党派机构，”正义布雷特·卡瓦诺就在上个月的一次演讲中告诉一群联邦法官。
按照传统，大法官们倾向于远离政治辩论，即使是在他们的裁决和个人行为受到公众强烈批评的时候。
当...的时候首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨拒绝了参议院司法委员会最近发出的就高等法院的道德标准作证的邀请，他对民主党人发起的听证会核心提案保持沉默。
罗伯茨为他不发表意见的决定广泛援引了“权力分立的考虑”和“司法独立”。
但是现在塞缪尔·阿利托法官正在绘制一条截然不同的路线。
立刻《华尔街日报》的采访就在这一年，发表一个月后，他走上了报纸的社论专页为了反驳不当行为的指控，阿利托直接面对他的批评者和国会议员对法院道德行为的关注。
据《华尔街日报》报道，阿利托直截了当地说:“宪法中没有任何条款赋予他们管理最高法院时期的权力。”。
这一主张引起了一系列争议不同意识形态的法律学者，一周前，参议院司法委员会首次提出民主党支持的立法，将对大法官实施新的道德规则。
尽管最高法院的九名成员长期以来一直暗示反对，迄今为止，还没有人对加强道德问责和透明度的最新努力提出明确质疑。
据《华尔街日报》报道，阿利托说:“关于法官和大法官应该如何表现的传统观念是，他们应该保持沉默。”。“在某个时刻，我对自己说，没有人会这样做，所以我必须为自己辩护。”
这番话周三引起了参议院司法委员会主席迪克·德宾的强烈回应。他抨击了阿利托“对一项仍在立法过程中的法案的投机性公开评论”。
“让我们明确一点:阿利托大法官不是美国参议院的第101位议员。他对第一条活动的干预是不明智和不受欢迎的，”德宾在一份声明中说。“最高法院法官的道德行为是本委员会管辖范围内的一个严重问题。确保法官的道德行为对法院的合法性至关重要。”
阿利托决定直接介入关于法院道德标准改革提案的辩论，并断然否认其合宪性，这似乎违反了公众对可能提交大法官审理的问题保持公正的长期准则。
“因为最高法院拥有决定立法制定的合宪性的权力，最高法院本身在决定国会是否可以有效地将道德行为规范强加于它的问题上似乎起着关键的作用，”a无党派国会分析今年早些时候结束。
“很难预测对这样一部法典的挑战会如何出现在法庭上，以及法庭是否会坚持其合宪性，因为现有的司法先例对法庭如何解决这一合宪性问题提供了最少的指导，”报告写道。
专家说，他们同样可以选择遵守国会制定的行为准则，如果该准则曾经颁布过的话，或者他们也可以选择无视它。
接下来会发生什么还不清楚。
最高法院从未处理过国会是否可以将那些要求强加给最高法院的问题。尽管如此，法官们还是遵守了那些条款，”罗伯茨在他的年终报告2011年。
最高法院是根据宪法建立的政府的一个独立部门，多年来，国会在塑造其形式和运作方面发挥了关键作用。
例如，立法者负责设立九个法官席位，并要求大法官宣誓就职。
国会还明确将法官纳入水门事件后颁布的一项法律中，该法律要求所有联邦官员披露财务状况，并在一项单独的措施中规定了法院的管辖权。
这些措施当时都没有受到法院成员的公开质疑，法官们已经采取措施遵守这些措施。
参议院多数党党鞭迪克·德宾在国会大厦，2023年6月1日。
沈婷/彭博通过盖蒂图片
虽然一种可能性法院和国会之间的摊牌道德规范在短期内似乎不太可能，但仍有可能。
作为最高法院总统委员会得出结论去年，国会“需要小心确保法典的要求不会侵犯最高法院在宪法上专属的司法决策职能。”
但是，由来自法律界的34名学者组成的跨党派小组也明显没有说国会不能尝试。
“国会可以通过他们想要的任何东西，”前司法部律师兼ABC新闻法律分析师萨拉·伊斯古尔说。“问题总是在于‘大棒’——他们实施这一政策的机制。”
Justice Alito rejects Congress' power on ethics in public break from peers: ANALYSIS
In their relatively rare public appearances off the bench, justices of the U.S. Supreme Court frequently profess to be agnostic on matters of politics and public policy.
"The court is an institution of law, not of politics, not of partisanship," JusticeBrett Kavanaughtold a group of federal judges in a speech just last month.
By tradition, the justices have tended to stay far from political debate even in the midst of intense public criticism of their rulings and personal conduct.
WhenChief Justice John Robertsdeclined a recent invitation by the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about the high court's ethics standards, he maintained silence about a Democrat-sponsored proposal at the heart of the hearing.
Roberts broadly invoked "separation of powers concerns" and "judicial independence" for his decision not to opine.
But nowJustice Samuel Alitois charting a starkly different course.
In a secondinterview with the Wall Street Journaljust this year, published a month after he took to the paper'seditorial pageto refute misconduct allegations, Alito is directly confronting his critics and members of Congress concerned about ethical practices on the court.
"No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court -- period," Alito said flatly, according to the Journal.
The claim, which is disputed by an array oflegal scholars from across the ideological spectrum,came one week after the Senate Judiciary Committee moved for the first time to advance Democrat-backed legislation that would impose new ethics rules on the justices.
While all nine members of the court have long implied opposition,none has explicitly contested the latest effort to strengthen ethics accountability and transparency -- until now.
"The traditional idea about how judges and justices should behave is they should be mute," Alito said, according to the Journal. "At a certain point I've said to myself, nobody else is going to do this, so I have to defend myself."
The comments drew a sharp response Wednesday from Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who blasted Alito's "speculative public commentary on a bill that is still going through the legislative process."
"Let's be clear: Justice Alito is not the 101st member of the United States Senate. His intervention in Article I activity is unwise and unwelcome," Durbin said in a statement. "The ethical conduct of Supreme Court Justices is a serious matter within this Committee's jurisdiction. Ensuring ethical conduct by the justices is critical to the Court's legitimacy."
The decision by Alito to wade directly into debate over proposals to reform the court's ethics standards – and flatly deny their constitutionality – appears to breach longstanding norms of public impartiality over matters that could come before the justices.
"Because the Supreme Court possesses the authority to determine the constitutionality of legislative enactments, the Supreme Court itself would appear to have a critical role in determining whether Congress may validly impose a code of ethical conduct upon it," anonpartisan congressional analysisconcluded earlier this year.
"It is difficult to predict how a challenge to such a code might come before the Court and whether the Court would uphold its constitutionality, as existing judicial precedent offers minimal guidance on how the Court might resolve this constitutional question," the report reads.
They could similarly choose to abide by a code of conduct imposed by Congress, if one was ever enacted, or they could choose to simply ignore it, experts say.
What would happen next is unclear.
"The Court has never addressed whether Congress may impose those requirements on the Supreme Court. The Justices nevertheless comply with those provisions," Roberts wrote in hisyear-end reportin 2011.
The Supreme Court is an independent branch of government established by the Constitution, and Congress has played a key role over the years in shaping its form and operations.
Lawmakers, for example, are responsible for establishing nine seats on the bench and for the requirement that justices take an oath of office.
Congress also explicitly included the justices in a law enacted after Watergate that mandates financial disclosures from all federal officials and in a separate measure dictating the Court's jurisdiction.
None of those steps was overtly challenged by a member of the Court at the time, and justices have taken steps to comply.
While the possibility of ashowdown between the court and Congressover an ethics code seems unlikely in the near term, it remains on the horizon as a possibility.
As thePresidential Commission on the Supreme Court concludedlast year, Congress "would need to be careful to ensure that the code's demands did not encroach on the Court's constitutionally exclusive judicial decisionmaking function."
But the bipartisan panel of 34 scholars from across the legal world was also conspicuous not to say that Congress could not try.
"Congress can pass whatever they want," said Sarah Isgur, a former Justice Department attorney and ABC News legal analyst. "The problem is always going to be the 'stick' – the mechanism by which they enforce it."
