Before dismissing President Biden’s proposals for reforming the Supreme Court as useless, as some already have, it might be wise to consider what Maryland did to instill and keep public confidence in the judiciary.

For this we set the Wayback Machine to the mid-1960s, when there was a movement to change the way Maryland dealt with judges accused of incompetence or considered in some way disabled.

At the time, only five states had independent commissions like the one Maryland established by constitutional amendment in 1966. It became known as the Commission on Judicial Disabilities, empowered to investigate complaints, conduct hearings and recommend disciplinary action.

The reason for this needs to be stated because, these days, I never assume that everyone understands why we bother with standards and codes: In the case of the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities, it’s to maintain the integrity of the judiciary and promote public confidence in the judicial system.

The commission’s earliest case involved a couple of lower court judges who fixed parking tickets in Baltimore for political associates, friends and friends of friends. Those judges were removed from the bench.

The second major case involved the chief judge of what was then called the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City. He was censured for “the appearance of impropriety,” having used his position and influence to net big profit from a modest investment in a Carroll County land deal. That judge took early retirement.

I know what you’re thinking: Parking tickets, a land deal — small potatoes compared with what we’ve learned about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his lucrative relationship with a conservative billionaire, as reported extensively by ProPublica.

And, given what we’ve learned about Justice Samuel Alito and his wife’s apparent sympathy for Jan. 6 insurrectionists, I would say his refusal at recusal in the presidential immunity case gave “the appearance of impropriety.” Ditto Thomas because of his wife’s involvement in the “Stop the Steal” effort after the 2020 election.

These are just some of the reasons why public regard for the Supreme Court is close to an historic low.

So Biden is correct: The Supreme Court needs a code of conduct, and the first rule should be no gifts from a billionaire who isn’t your mother.

To enforce that code, the court should have something like the many state commissions on judicial conduct that have been created over the last 50 years.

Justice Elena Kagen, speaking at a judicial conference last month in California, suggested that an independent panel of respected and experienced judges review allegations of ethics violations by the justices.

That seems reasonable. Not even Supreme Court justices should be above the law, certainly not above basic rules of conduct that maintain integrity and the public’s confidence.

In my lifetime, we’ve never had a national discussion about the need for Supreme Court reform. That’s a tribute to the integrity of the men and women who have sat on the court, the presidents who appointed them and the senators who confirmed them.

But we’re at this place now for a reason stated succinctly the other day by Mark Graber, the University of Maryland School of Law Regents Professor and an expert on constitutional law and politics: While in the past Americans disagreed with court decisions, they never considered the justices who made those decisions to be corrupt.

From time to time, there have been demands for reform of the high court, Graber said. It happened in Lincoln’s era and during the New Deal.

It happened after highly controversial court decisions, and Graber reached back to a couple of different points in history: Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s opinion in the Dred Scott case that enslaved people were not citizens, and the landmark civil rights decisions of the Earl Warren years.

“The difference between the [current] Roberts Court and other controversial courts — the Warren court, the Taney court — was that, while people thought Taney was wrong, that Earl Warren was wrong, nobody thought they were particularly corrupt…

“You might have thought [Chief Justice] William Rehnquist was wrong, but you didn’t think he was corrupt.

“You might have thought [Justice] Hugo Black was wrong, but you had no doubt that Hugo Black was one of the most sincere people imaginable.

“Now, there’s a claim that, even if it’s not influencing their votes per se, justices are using their positions for financial benefits. And no one ever claimed that of the Warren Court or the Taney Court. So that’s what’s different — the personal integrity of the justices that, by their behavior, they put up for question.”

Generally speaking, the nation has benefited from Supreme Court justices whose integrity was not questioned, either because they maintained ethical discipline or because the press was not as diligent about reporting on the justices’ personal conduct.

Also, justices in the past seemed more circumspect in public behavior and statements, if they made public appearances or statements at all.

Graber has been to international judicial conferences, met judges from other Western democracies and studied their systems.

“In other countries,” he says, “judges are people with important jobs while justices in the United States treat themselves and are treated as royalty. And we might really want to consider stopping that, and in some sense say, ‘You don’t get these special deals. When you go out to eat, you pay like everybody else.’ That seems to be a good start.”

Clarification:In Friday’s column, I stated incorrectly that Maryland requires anglers to kill any invasive northern snakehead they catch. They are only required to kill snakeheads they intend to keep.