The Supreme Court has a serious ethics issue that it’s failing to address – and it’s not the United States Supreme Court I’m talking about. It’s the Maine Supreme Court.

You may not have heard about it over the manufactured furor over Clarence Thomas, but Maine has its own ethics controversy. Justice Catherine Connors, an associate justice on the Maine Supreme Court appointed by Gov. Janet Mills, failed to recuse herself from a case that she very clearly should have. Before serving on the Maine Supreme Court, she represented banks in foreclosure cases and failed to recuse herself from a major decision involving Maine’s foreclosure laws. The defense counsel filed a complaint, it was decided that she should be sanctioned for her actions – and none of it matters.

Just like with the U.S. Supreme Court, the Maine Supreme Court can’t remove its own members; that’s up to the Legislature. Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, she can be penalized, but not in any substantial way. There’s no chance she’ll resign, and Democrats certainly won’t remove her from office. Even though Gov. Mills would appoint her replacement, Maine Democrats won’t take the risk. They’d have to vote to impeach her in the House and convict her with a two-thirds vote in the Senate. That would be tough to get done even if Republicans had a majority in the Legislature, but with Democrats in power, it’s impossible.

Keep all of that in mind when it comes to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Democrats have a judicial controversy of their own at the state level in Maine, and they’re unlikely to do anything about it. You can argue that her impropriety is far less severe than Clarence Thomas’, but that’s not the point. The point is that either party will only take action about ethics controversies when it’s politically convenient for it to do so. A party will happily lodge complaints against its political opponents and happily ignore complaints against its allies.

Yes, by the way, the newsroom that uncovered the missed gift filings from Clarence Thomas, ProPublica, is a liberal-oriented operation. That doesn’t mean that its reports are inaccurate, nor is it a reason to dismiss it entirely, but it’s worth keeping in mind. It’s hard to imagine ProPublica choosing to even investigate a left-leaning Supreme Court justice, let alone publishing a report criticizing him or her if it did.

That’s why the discipline of judges on the Supreme Court, whether at the state or federal level, should be handled in exactly the same way as all other judges in the same system. It is transparently obvious that U.S. Supreme Court justices should have to follow the same code of judicial ethics that all other federal judges follow; that’s simply common sense. Moreover, any penalties that can be applied to lower federal judges should be applied to Supreme Court justices as closely as is allowed under the Constitution.

The same, of course, goes for Maine Supreme Court justices. That’s where the hypocrisy comes into play in the case of Connors. Maine Democrats could use this case as an opportunity to reform the system. They should make sure that, in Maine at least, Supreme Court justices can face serious penalties for violating the rules. If they were consistent, they’d introduce legislation reforming the entire Maine judicial discipline system to include the Maine Supreme Court. That would pair nicely with the efforts by progressives at the national level to hold Clarence Thomas accountable for anything he may have done wrong.

We shouldn’t remove the power of impeachment and conviction from the legislative body, at either level. State and federal legislators, no matter how political and partisan they may be, are the people’s representatives, and they deserve the final say. What we should do is make sure the rules are clear and consistent for all judges across the federal level, and in Maine, including the Supreme Court.

We should also enable nonpartisan investigations of Supreme Court justices in both Maine and at the federal level. They can’t make the legislative branch act, but they can publish damning public reports. This should follow a set of procedures, and the person facing accusations should have an opportunity to defend themselves. Right now, though, we don’t have a real way to investigate and penalize either U.S. or Maine Supreme Court justices at all, short of impeachment, and that’s ridiculous.