Two private clubs that have proudly counted Supreme Court justices among their honorary members have apparently lost those jewels from their crowns, thanks to a 2008 law barring judges from accepting free club memberships valued above $50.
Financial disclosure forms for 2008 filed by Supreme Court justices this spring and released this afternoon reveal that four justices -- John Roberts Jr., Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- quit or withdrew from the University Club in D.C., while three justices -- Kennedy, Scalia, and Samuel Alito Jr. -- said they left the Washington Golf and Country Club in Arlington, Va. Kennedy also reported quitting the Del Paso Country Club in Sacramento, Roberts quit the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., and Ginsburg left the City Tavern Club in D.C. She also said she ended her honorary membership in New York's Lotos Club and became instead a "regular dues paying member."
The law, passed by Congress last year in part to make the judiciary suffer under the same restrictions that representatives and senators themselves live with, caused a stir among private clubs, especially in D.C. The University Club's first president in 1904 was then-future chief justice William Howard Taft, and while the bill was pending before Congress, a club official said retaining justices as honorary members was very important given its history.
The University Club late last year offered judges a work-around as of Jan. 1 in response to the law, creating a special discounted membership category with lower dues that equalled dues paid by out-of-town members. Judicial ethics experts doubted the arrangement followed the law, and last month, as we reported here, a committee of the Judicial Conference issued new guidelines that seemed to frown upon discounted memberships such as that offered by the University Club.
A cautionary note: Since the reporting period for the forms released today ended Dec. 31 of last year, it is conceivable that some of the justices have rejoined the University Club under the new arrangement, or as full dues-paying members of that or other clubs.
can you tell me the url where the filed disclosure forms available, please.
Posted by: terry allen | June 05, 2009 at 06:05 PM