Constitution
§4.3.a — Supreme Court Justice Removal
Read the operative provision in the annotated Constitution.
Open provision →Associate Justice Mara Venn authored the Court's 5–4 decision striking down the National Port Security Act. The ruling was lawful, narrow, and politically explosive. Within a week, legislative leaders from both governing parties called Venn reckless, unelected, and dangerous.
Three days later, an investigative disclosure produced a different problem. Venn had held a substantial beneficial interest in a logistics partnership while hearing two cases whose outcomes materially affected the partnership's federal contracts. The interest had not appeared on her required financial disclosure. Internal correspondence suggested she knew of the connection before oral argument and declined to recuse.
Two Allegations, Only One Constitutional Ground
§4.3.a — Judicial disagreement is never cause
A legislature may despise a judgment. It may not convert that disagreement into a removal ground.
Several senators filed a resolution describing the Port Security decision as evidence that Venn had "abandoned the constitutional order." That language did not create cause. §4.3.a makes judicial disagreement — however profound — constitutionally insufficient.
The undisclosed financial interest was different. If established, deliberate nondisclosure and participation in matters touching that interest could constitute serious misconduct and abuse of office. The same political actors could therefore be motivated by an impermissible reason while relying on facts that might independently support a permissible ground.
The Monitor Assessment
The Assembly requested a Monitor assessment. The assessment concluded that the disclosure failure was substantiated, that the financial interest was material, and that the justice had received written notice of the conflict before the second case. It expressly declined to evaluate the correctness of Venn's Port Security opinion.
§4.3.a — Informative, not constitutive
The Monitor can develop the record. It does not decide whether a justice is removed.
The assessment was published to the NRS. It was not a prerequisite to removal and did not itself suspend Venn. Removal still required grounds within §4.3.a — serious misconduct, abuse of office, or permanent incapacity — and concurrent two-thirds votes of both chambers.
The Vote
The resolution was divided. One part treated the Port Security judgment itself as a ground for removal. The other rested on the separately stated allegations of deliberate nondisclosure, failure to recuse, and serious misconduct.
§4.3.a — The Legislature decides, and the threshold protects the Court
Political hostility does not immunize real misconduct, but real misconduct is not a substitute for two-thirds of each chamber.
§4.3.a makes the Legislature's determination that grounds exist final, so no court was asked to review the resolution. The protection for the Court lay in the threshold itself: removal needed concurrent two-thirds votes of both chambers, and disagreement with a ruling is expressly not grounds.
The Assembly voted 78% for removal. The Senate voted 65% — one vote short of two-thirds of its full seated membership. Venn remained a justice. No lesser vote, Monitor finding, or public anger could substitute for the constitutional threshold.
What This Scenario Tests
§4.3.a protects judicial independence without making Supreme Court justices untouchable. The Constitution distinguishes sharply between disagreement with a judicial decision and misconduct by the person who made it. The former can never be removal cause; the latter can be.
Removal is a political act with a plain-language standard, and the political branches make the decision. Because the determination is final, the safeguard is the threshold: both chambers must each reach two-thirds, and a justice whose ruling angered one majority can still be protected by the other.