Self-regulation doesn’t work — even for Supreme Court justices

After months of public shaming, the Supreme Court has finally issued a code of conduct for itself. Unfortunately, these self-enforced, mostly performative guidelines are unlikely to curtail the justices’ fondness for private jet travel financed by billionaire partisans. 

That’s because the current approach to Supreme Court ethics is based on an archaic notion that distinguished professionals like Supreme Court justices are somehow different from the plebeian working riff-raff. Spoiler alert: they’re not.