Professor Amanda Frost Testifies Before House Judiciary Subcommittee

June 21, 2019

Professor Amanda Frost
Prof. Frost testifying before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property & the Internet.

On Friday, June 21, American University Washington College of Law Professor Amanda Frost testified before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property & the Internet during the hearing “The Federal Judiciary in the 21st Century: Ideas for Promoting Ethics, Accountability, & Transparency.”

During the hearing, Frost discussed the existing laws governing the regulation of judicial ethics and recusal and the ways in which these laws should be expanded and amended to better protect the legitimacy of the federal judiciary generally, and the Supreme Court in particular. Frost’s testimony concluded with a discussion on Congress’s constitutional authority to regulate judicial ethics and recusal rules for the lower federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court.

View the hearing here

“I advocated that Congress amend the existing laws to provide that justices on the U.S. Supreme Court be subject to a code of ethical conduct similar to the one that currently applies only to lower court judges,” Frost said. “I also argued that Congress should amend the recusal laws to provide procedural mechanisms ensuring that individual judges do not decide on their own whether to recuse, and that they provide an explanation for their decision to recuse (or not) when asked to do so.”

Frost writes and teaches in the fields of constitutional law, federal courts and jurisdiction, and judicial ethics. She has previously testified on these and related issues before both the Subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property & the Internet and the Senate Judiciary Committee.

American University Washington College of Law faculty experts are often invited to testify before Congress and administrative agencies, and in other ways are asked to share their expertise with government decision-makers. See other recent examples: