The Supreme Court has become politicized, and this is to say at the least, disappointing and perhaps dangerous.
So, a lecture by Justice Clarence Thomas, of all people, bemoaning the horrors of extreme income inequality.
Does he really not realize that by giving partisan political speeches in partisan political environments, he is precisely what is damaging the integrity of the Supreme Court?
Thomas is in a position of prestige and power and has been so for a long time and makes it easy to ignore the consequences of his words and actions.
Thomas claimed that Republicans had never trashed a Supreme Court nominee they openly stole a vacancy from President Barack Obama in 2016 by refusing even to give a hearing to his third nominee, Merrick Garland.
Meanwhile, Justice Thomas said Mr. Garland “did not get a hearing, but he was not trashed.”
Justice Thomas isn’t alone on that count, of course. In 2004, Justice Scalia went duck hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney and accepted free air travel from him, even as Mr. Cheney had a case pending before the court.
These days, Justice Thomas and his fellow right-wingers don’t care about the court’s reputation; they’re just whining about public outrage at their rulings even as they flaunt the most politicized majority in memory. There are now two members of the court, Justice Thomas and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who have attacked Democrats and liberals, as a group, in public settings.
Justice Kavanaugh accused Democrats at his confirmation hearing of an “orchestrated political hit” against him.
The Supreme Court has always operated within and not outside politics; like the rest of our government,
Still, the justices have generally striven to stay above the fray. In the interest of protecting and promoting their institutional legitimacy,
For example, the vote in Brown vs Board of Education was 9 to 0, in Roe vs Wade was 7 to 2. Today’s right-wing justices appear to have no qualms about narrow victories, even though five of them were appointed by presidents who first won the presidency after losing the popular vote.
Here is another example, Chief Justice John Roberts said that the recent leak of a draft opinion that would strike down Roe v. Wade is “absolutely appalling” and stressed that he hopes “one bad apple” would not change “people’s perception” of the nation’s highest court and workforce.
Sorry, Roberts, Americans’ opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court have worsened, to 40%, down from 49%, saying they approve of the job the high court is doing. This represents, a new low in Gallup’s trend, which dates back to 2000.
These latest findings, from Gallup’s annual Governance survey conducted Sept. 1-17, come little more than a year after 58% of Americans approved of the Supreme Court, among the highest readings in the trend.
Looking at the history of previous lows in Gallup’s trend: 42% approval in 2005 after the court expanded government’s eminent domain power, and again in 2016, after the Supreme Court ruled colleges could continue to consider using race as a factor in admissions, a decision most Americans opposed.
In 2013, 43% approved of the Supreme Court after it issued rulings that expanded the rights of same-sex couples and weakened the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
A new high of 37%, up from 32% a year ago, consider the current Supreme Court “too conservative.”
Throughout Obama’s two terms, during which two of his nominees were confirmed, more Americans perceived the court as being too liberal than being too conservative. The opposite pattern occurred during the Trump administration.
Some of the current court members were confirmed to their high position in a manner that disregarded a majority of the American people, so why not rule that way, too?
The Supreme Court is not there to vindicate the demands of the majority, but neither is it there to thumb its nose at that majority again and again, in a nakedly partisan way. If Justice Thomas is genuinely concerned about the eroding faith in his own institution, the first thing he can do is look in the mirror. The next thing he can do is step aside and give the job to someone who will actually work to protect the integrity of the court.