Politics

Judges shouldn’t be above the laws they interpret

Published

2 years ago

November 12, 2024

Judges shouldn’t be above the laws they interpret

It was a very bad summer for the federal judiciary.

First, Judge Joshua Kindred of Alaska resigned from the federal bench in scandal after a 20-month investigation uncovered appalling abuse and sexual harassment in his chambersleading to a referral from the Judicial Conference for possible impeachment in the House of Representatives.

Then, back-to-back reports were released — one from the Federal Judicial Center and National Academy of Public Administration, the other from the U.S. Government Accountability Office — underscoring issues that judicial accountability advocates have been raising for years: The federal judiciary’s insistence on insular “self-policing” and internal dispute resolution mechanisms have led to a lack of accountability for judges who mistreat employees.

The federal judiciary’s insistence on insular “self-policing”…have led to a lack of accountability for judges who mistreat employees.

Furthermore, a federal public defender attempted to sue the federal judiciary for allegedly mishandling her sexual harassment complaint, further underscoring the ineffectiveness of self-policing by the third branch.

Given the lack of guardrails to prevent, discipline or redress judicial misconduct, these issues of sexual harassment, discrimination, bullying, abusive conduct and retaliation are pervasive in courthouses nationwide. Law clerks routinely signal that they have not and would not report misconduct to the federal judiciary, as they do not feel protected against retaliation. Worse still, they do not think their concerns will be taken seriously, so they too often suffer in silence.

Despite this pervasiveness, the foundational federal statutes — such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — still do not apply to the judiciary, making it one of the only employers in the entire country whose employees are not protected by federal civil rights laws. This means that these employees cannot access legal remedies and seek financial recourse for harm to their career, reputation and future earning potential.

Simply put, federal judges are above the laws they interpret.

We are not strangers to these issues. They are personal to us both and we have dedicated our careers to fixing them: one of us by serving his constituents as the representative of Georgia’s 4th Congressional District, and before that as a magistrate judge and criminal defense attorney; the other by starting a nonprofit dedicated to providing support and resources to law clerks after experiencing harassment at the hands of the judge she clerked for in the D.C. Superior Court.

We come together to shed light on the fact that harassment in our federal courthouses is rarely shared publicly due to the culture of silence surrounding the judiciary. The enormous power disparity between law clerks and life-tenured federal judges makes it incredibly difficult to speak out.

Fortunately, there is a fix.

…harassment in our federal courthouses is rarely shared publicly due to the culture of silence surrounding the judiciary.

The Judiciary Accountability Act (JAA) would extend federal antidiscrimination protections to the more than 30,000 judicial branch employees, including law clerks and public defenders. Judges, the most powerful (and unaccountable) members of the legal profession, should be held to the highest ethical standards, not the lowest. And the antidiscrimination laws they interpret, which apply to all nonjudicial civilian government employees, should apply to them, too. The JAA is similar to the Congressional Accountability Actwhich extended these protections to Congress and its staff in 1995.

The JAA — which will be reintroduced in Congress this month by Rep. Johnson — is commonsense legislation that would align the federal judiciary with not just the rest of the federal government but with private sector workplaces as well. It would standardize the internal dispute resolution mechanisms (currently the only mode of redress for harassment) throughout the judiciary. It would revise the judicial complaint process so investigations against judges can continue even when a judge resigns, retires or passes away. Crucially, it would extend whistleblower retaliation protections to clerks who report misconduct, thereby encouraging more robust reporting.

And it would require the federal judiciary to finally collect and report data — to the public and to Congress. Quantifying the scope of these problems is the first step toward crafting effective solutions. The judiciary’s unnecessarily secretive and insular resistance to transparency is a red flag and must be remedied.

There has never been a better time to enact the JAA, as the judiciary continues to claim to “self-police,” yet scandal after scandal has shown the judicial branch cannot get its own house in order. The judiciary has repeatedly signaled a lack of concern for the well-being of employees, routinely claiming it has “robust reporting mechanisms.” Yet these mechanisms have failed to enact meaningful internal policies in the more than six years since notorious harasser Judge Alex Kozinski stepped down from the same circuit as Judge Kindred.

In the face of clear, repeated evidence of unaccountable judges committing egregious misconduct, Congress has the power and the duty to fix it and ensure judicial employees using their voices and bravely sharing their experiences do not do so in vain. Democrats and Republicans can unite behind this commonsense, nonpartisan legislation, as historically, judicial accountability has not been a partisan issue. Both Democratic and Republican judicial appointees harass their clerks, just as liberal and conservative clerks are mistreated by their powerful bosses, all without legal recourse.

Judges are uniquely unaccountable and immune from scrutiny. Simply put: There is no substitute for legislative action on this issue. Congress must step in and extend legal protections to the over 30,000 employees in our federal judiciary. These employees deserve safe and respectful workplaces, free from discrimination and harassment, and yet that’s not a commitment the judiciary can currently make in good faith to thousands of recent graduates embarking on federal clerkships this month.

It is the height of injustice that judiciary employees who support the daily functioning of our courts lack basic workplace protections. These protections are already provided to congressional and executive branch staff. Why should we continue to exempt our third branch of government?

Hank Johnson

Rep. Hank Johnson is a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Courts. He has represented Georgia’s Fourth District since 2007.

Aliza Shatzman

Aliza Shatzman is president and founder of the Legal Accountability Project. She is an attorney and advocate based in Washington, D.C. who writes and speaks about judicial accountability, clerkships, and diversity in the courts.

Politics

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

Published

22 hours ago

September 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

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Politics

Trump wants the Postal Service to radically overhaul mail voting. But ballots are already going out.

Published

3 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s controversial demands for the Postal Service to overhaul and monitor millions of mail ballots hit another snag on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state in the nation to start sending out ballots for the November election.

In March, Trump signed the initial executive order, which aimed to crack down on mail-in voting — which he regularly alleges without evidence is a vector for widespread voter fraud — and assert an unprecedented amount of federal control over the upcoming elections.

Under this order and the subsequent rule drafted by the U.S. Postal Service, the USPS would refuse to deliver ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible mail voters or did not adhere to an approved envelope design style.

Since then, the order has faced legal challenges, and it remains paused by a federal judge’s orders. But the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the new rule to proceed — something current and former election officials from both parties say would be both a legal nightmare that oversteps the federal government’s traditional role in elections and a logistical one that is happening far too close to the November election to implement even if they agreed with it.

“Why the hell are you rocking the boat this late in the game?” said Stephen Richer, a former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has clashed with Trump allies for defending the security of the 2020 election.

Still, election officials are trying to project a sense of normalcy for voters, particularly in North Carolina, which serves as a test of whether established local election systems can operate normally amid intensifying federal scrutiny.

“I want to emphasize this point because there has been a lot of outside noise: Our county workers are ready,” Sam Hayes, a longtime Republican lawyer in the state and now executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.

He added, “All we can do is what we’re doing. … It is business as usual as far as I’m concerned.”

Despite the legal challenges, the Trump administration has continued to press the courts to let it proceed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift an order from a Massachusetts judge which temporarily prevents the USPS from enforcing their rule. It is the second time the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in, after winning an earlier victory in which the high court dismissed an earlier hold on the rule as premature.

“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”

The USPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Election officials said that if the rule goes into effect this close to November, it would cause chaos and place added strain on the USPS and election officials. And an anonymous federal whistleblower said in a report circulated earlier this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that the USPS was moving forward in a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process” to try to implement the new system ahead of the midterms.

In the coming weeks, states across the country will follow North Carolina’s lead. Nine other states will begin mailing ballots in the next two weeks, according to a tracker from the National Conference of State Legislatures — with the biggest day for mailing coming 45 days before the election in mid-September.

“It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect. It’s hard to even imagine,” said Ben Hovland, a senior fellow for democracy at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress and former Democratic commissioner with the Election Assistance Commission who was fired by Trump in July.

He added, “It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy.”

The rule would require meticulous changes to ballot handling and tracking practices that Hovland said are impossible to implement before Election Day in about two months, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters.

“Ballots are printed. Envelopes are printed. You can go on and on with all the practical reasons that show that implementing something like this at this time is not feasible,” he said.

Richer said he doubted the new rules would bring about more security. Even if the USPS received lists from the states, according to the postal service’s final rule, it would not do any additional vetting of the list, Richer said.

“It’s just that the mail ballots have to be on that list, and I don’t see what added value for election integrity that does,” he said.

He added, “It creates a lot of administrative burden, and I think it creates a lot more opportunity for error.”

While a decision looms in the courts, election officials and experts cast doubt on the likelihood of the rules going into effect before November. A more pressing issue, they said, is the confusion and uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots, which could subvert and change the behaviors of voters.

“It makes things seem messy or difficult, and it can dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote,” Hovland said. “It certainly also helps establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results.”

Hovland said that while none of these claims of voter fraud are backed up with facts, they could cause Americans to lose faith in the voting process.

Still, some current officials contended they were well-prepared for whatever happens — and that they’d be able to communicate effectively with voters who have become increasingly buffeted by dramatic rhetoric about the once-unmentioned nuts and bolts of actually running an election.

“There’s always a lot of noise around elections, that’s not going to change, and it can be hard to differentiate that from what’s actually going on on the ground,” said Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

As Election Day approaches, Tyson and election officials said they urge voters to check their registration status and make a plan to vote.

He added, “I think we’ve got a really well-trained, solid staff who are ready, and who have gone through all of the checks and balances and points of contact that we need to do to get to where we are.”

Politics

Missouri Supreme Court pauses GOP gerrymander, likely netting Democrats 1 House seat

Published

3 days ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Missouri’s Supreme Court suspended a congressional map that state Republicans drew last year that would have netted the GOP an additional House seat, likely keeping the seat in Democratic hands this November.

The court ruled unanimously on Thursday that a referendum petition organized by Democrats to put the new congressional maps to a vote was incorrectly deemed insufficient by Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and ordered that the gerrymandered map be put to a vote in the fall.

Voters will ultimately decide the fate of the new lines in November. But in the meantime, it cannot be in place for the midterms, meaning Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s original Kansas City-based district will likely stay in Democrats’ hands this fall.