“Fix the Court,” a new advocacy campaign aimed at the secretive workings of the U.S. Supreme Court, launches today with a six-figure advertising campaign on Fox, MSNBC and select websites, reports USA Today. With money from the non-partisan New Venture Fund, the campaign is intended to bring more media and advertising firepower to what has been a diffused effort on the part of liberal, conservative and government watchdog groups concerned about the high court’s renowned seclusion.
“They told us where we can pray, picked our president, allowed billionaires to buy elections and made choices of life and death,” the ad intones. “Nine judges, appointed for life to a court that makes its own rules and has disdain for openness and transparency — the Supreme Court, the most powerful and least accountable branch of government.” The campaign asks that justices specify why they recuse themselves from cases so the public can gauge their potential conflicts of interest; file annual online financial disclosures; abide by the same code of conduct that applies to other federal judges; give advance notice of their public appearances, and improve media and public access to their courtroom and courthouse plaza.