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To: Supreme Court of the United States
Trump Appointees on Supreme Court Must Recuse Themselves from 2020 Election Decisions
All Supreme Court Justices appointed by President Trump, including a potential appointee to replace Justice Ginsburg, have an ethical mandate to recuse themselves from any Supreme Court decision relating to the 2020 Presidential election.
Why is this important?
Since Justice Ginsburg's death, one of the issues that has been raised frequently has been the possibility of a legal battle surrounding the results of the 2020 election, which would need to be decided by the Supreme Court.
While we like to think of the Supreme Court Justices as being objective, dispassionate arbiters of the law, the reality is that they are still human. As such, they are still subject to the same human flaws as the rest of us, including interpreting the same facts differently based on their emotions. This is not to suggest that any of the Justices would do this intentionally, just to acknowledge that, like all other humans, emotional involvement in a situation may make it harder to judge that situation objectively.
With regard to the upcoming Presidential election, emotional involvement is likely to be strong for everyone, but even more so for those Justices who were appointed to their position by one of the candidates in this same election - President Trump. Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and possibly a third Justice, have a different relationship with President Trump than do any of the other Justices. This relationship affects how they perceive the President, and how they will perceive any potential legal issues involved in the upcoming election. It is unfair to them demand that they maintain the same level of objectivity as their colleagues, and equally unfair to the rest of the country to let our future be swayed by this loss of objectivity. As such, the ethical action must be that the Trump-appointed Justices recuse themselves from any Supreme Court decision relating to this election.
While we like to think of the Supreme Court Justices as being objective, dispassionate arbiters of the law, the reality is that they are still human. As such, they are still subject to the same human flaws as the rest of us, including interpreting the same facts differently based on their emotions. This is not to suggest that any of the Justices would do this intentionally, just to acknowledge that, like all other humans, emotional involvement in a situation may make it harder to judge that situation objectively.
With regard to the upcoming Presidential election, emotional involvement is likely to be strong for everyone, but even more so for those Justices who were appointed to their position by one of the candidates in this same election - President Trump. Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and possibly a third Justice, have a different relationship with President Trump than do any of the other Justices. This relationship affects how they perceive the President, and how they will perceive any potential legal issues involved in the upcoming election. It is unfair to them demand that they maintain the same level of objectivity as their colleagues, and equally unfair to the rest of the country to let our future be swayed by this loss of objectivity. As such, the ethical action must be that the Trump-appointed Justices recuse themselves from any Supreme Court decision relating to this election.