The American public no longer believes the Supreme Court is impartial

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2 years ago

January 11, 2023

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Never in recent history, perhaps, have so many Americans viewed the Supreme Court as fundamentally partisan.

Public approval of the nine-justice panel stands near historic lows. Declining faith in the institution seems rooted in a growing concern that the high court is deciding cases on politics, rather than law. In one recent poll, a majority of Americans opined that Supreme Court justices let partisan views influence major rulings.

Three quarters of Republicans approve of the high court’s recent job performance. But Democrats’ support has plummeted to 13 percent, and more than half the nation overall disapproves of how the court is doing its job.

Public support for the high court sank swiftly last summer in response to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a landmark ruling that revoked a constitutional right to abortion. The decision delighted many conservatives but defied a large majority of Americans who believe abortion should be legal.

Anti-abortion advocates celebrate outside the Supreme Court in Washington on June 24, 2022, following the court’s decision to end constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Yet, partisan anger runs deeper than Dobbs. Liberals are fuming about a confluence of lucky timing and political maneuvering that enabled a Republican-controlled Senate to approve three conservative justices in four years, knocking the panel out of synch with the American public.

Judged by last year’s opinions, the current court is the most conservative in nearly a century, at a time when a majority of Americans are voting Democratic in most elections. Democrats say the court no longer mirrors society, a disconnect that spans politics and religion. All six of the court’s conservatives were raised Catholic, a faith that claims roughly one-fifth of the U.S. population.

Republicans counter that the high court’s job is to serve the Constitution, not to please the public.

“The Left was used to, for the most part, getting its way with the court,” said John Malcolm, a senior legal fellow at conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. “Now that the Left is not getting its way with the court, they’re trying to tear it down and delegitimize it.”

Legal scholars may not care much about the high court’s popularity, but they care deeply about its legitimacy.

And what is legitimacy? James L. Gibson, a political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, defines it as “loyalty to the institution. It is willingness to support the institution even when it’s doing things with which you disagree.”

Americans remained steadfastly loyal to the high court for decades, Gibson said, embracing it even after the powder-keg Bush v. Gore decision of 2000, which decided an election. Members of Congress near bottom of ethics ratings: Gallup

But then, with Dobbs, the high court suffered “the largest decline in legitimacy that’s ever been registered, through dozens and dozens of surveys using the same indicators,” Gibson said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

One Gallup poll, taken after someone leaked a draft of the Dobbs ruling, found that only 25 percent of the American public had confidence in the court, the lowest figure recorded in a half century of polling.

Around the same time, journalists revealed that Ginni Thomas, wife of high court Justice Clarence Thomas, had pressed state lawmakers to help overturn former President Trump’s 2020 defeat at the polls.

“The idea that you have the spouse of a Supreme Court justice advocating for overthrowing the government — sui generis, I think,” said Caroline Fredrickson, a visiting law professor at Georgetown University, invoking the Latin term for “unique.”

With the high court’s legitimacy eroding, Gibson said, the panel faces “greater institutional vulnerability to congressional manipulation.”

An unsympathetic legislature could add seats to the court, “packing” it to dilute the influence of the conservative majority. Congress could impose term limits on justices who now serve for life. Lawmakers could narrow the court’s jurisdiction, limiting its authority to hear contentious cases.

“Practically nothing about the court is free from congressional manipulation,” Gibson said. “And, man, John Roberts is aware of this.”

President Donald Trump, left, walks with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday, July 22, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The chief justice has emerged as a voice of moderation on the right-leaning panel. One Gallup poll, taken in December 2021, found that 60 percent of Americans approved of how Roberts was handling his job. Roberts outpolled other A-list leaders, including the president, vice president and leaders of the House and Senate.

“He’s the justice who twice saved Obamacare,” Malcolm said. Roberts joined the court’s liberals in rejecting legal challenges to health care reform by a popular president.

“He’s the justice who said, ‘I would not have overturned Roe v. Wade,’” Malcolm said. While he joined his conservative colleagues in the majority on Dobbs, Roberts wrote in a concurring opinion that he would have preferred not to reverse the 1973 abortion decision, but instead to rule more narrowly on the case at hand.

Roberts, chief justice since 2005, has defended the court’s legitimacy in public remarks since Dobbs. Legal scholars say he is keenly aware that his court is drifting away from the mainstream of public opinion.

“I think Chief Justice Roberts cares a lot about the optics,” Fredrickson said.

In its first term with a six-person conservative bloc, the high court overturned Roe, posited a Second Amendment right to carry guns in public and restricted the government’s role in combating climate change, among other rulings.

According to a scholarly database, the Dobbs court delivered its most conservative term since 1931.

In previous decades, by contrast, “the U.S. Supreme Court has rarely been out of step with the preferences of its constituents, the people,” Gibson said. “Throughout history, the court has ratified the views of the majority, not opposed them.”

If the current court has a historical precedent, it is the Warren court of the 1950s and 1960s. The panel led by Chief Justice Earl Warren inspired mass protests with decisions that expanded civil rights and outlawed segregation in public schools.

“You ended up having ‘Impeach Earl Warren’ signs throughout the Southeast during this time,” Malcolm said.

But even the Warren court didn’t cleave the nation by political party.

“While the divisions over the Warren court may have been just as deep or deeper, they didn’t break down deeply along party lines,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University. “There used to be liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats.”

Over the decades, the transfer of presidential power between parties has guaranteed a steady stream of liberal and conservative appointees to maintain political balance on the court. Former Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama each appointed two Supreme Court justices in a two-term, eight-year presidency.

And then came President Trump, who collaborated with a Republican Senate to deliver three justices in a single term.

Trump’s first appointment, Neil Gorsuch, plugged a vacancy Obama had attempted to fill with Merrick Garland, now the attorney general. The Republican Senate majority blocked Garland, stalling until the 2016 election in hope that a Republican candidate would prevail. Democrats howled.

Trump’s second pick, Brett Kavanaugh, followed a more orderly process but seeded even more controversy when a congressional witness, Christine Blasey Ford, accused the nominee of sexual assault.

Trump’s third appointment, Amy Coney Barrett, arrived on the eve of the 2020 election. This time, the Republican majority chose not to await the results. Again, Democrats howled.

Members of the Supreme Court sit for a new group portrait following the addition of Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, at the Supreme Court building in Washington, Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Barrett replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon who had clung to her seat through two bouts of cancer before dying in office at 87. Liberal strategists had urged her to resign during the Obama presidency. Some progressives fault her still for not stepping down.

In the months to come, President Biden and congressional Democrats could restore the court’s ideological balance by packing it with liberals, or hobble it by narrowing its jurisdiction. But they probably won’t, legal observers say, because the Republicans could one day weaponize the same tools against the Democrats.

Far more possible, in the long term, is a bipartisan consensus to impose term limits on the court. With medical advances extending human life, high-court justices now routinely serve for 30 years. Lifetime appointment “gives them a bizarrely monarchical sort of power,” Fredrickson said.

A 2021 bill proposed 18-year terms, with the president allowed to nominate a new justice every other year.

Two-thirds of the public support term limits. But Republicans have little incentive to back legislation that, from their perspective, solves a nonexistent problem.

“There’s a good chance that, sooner or later, we will get term limits for the Supreme Court,” Somin said. “But later is more likely than sooner.”

Business

Post-Brexit EU reset negotiations ‘going to the wire’, says minister

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57 mins ago

May 19, 2025

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Post-Brexit EU reset negotiations 'going to the wire', says minister

Negotiations to reset the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU are going “to the wire”, a Cabinet Office minister has said.

“There is no final deal as yet. We are in the very final hours,” the UK’s lead negotiator Nick Thomas-Symonds told Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips.

On the possibility of a youth mobility scheme with the EU, he insisted “nothing is agreed until everything is”.

“We would be open to a smart, controlled youth mobility scheme,” he said. “But I should set out, we will not return to freedom of movement.”

Politics latest: PM outlines ‘benefits’ for UK from closer EU ties

The government is set to host EU leaders in London on Monday.

Put to the minister that the government could not guarantee there will be a deal by tomorrow afternoon, Mr Thomas-Symonds said: “Nobody can guarantee anything when you have two parties in a negotiation.”

But the minister said he remained “confident” a deal could be reached “that makes our borders more secure, is good for jobs and growth, and brings people’s household bills down”.

“That is what is in our national interest and that’s what we will continue to do over these final hours,” he said.

“We have certainly been taking what I have called a ruthlessly pragmatic approach.”

On agricultural products, food and drink, Mr Thomas-Symonds said supermarkets were crying out for a deal because the status quo “isn’t working”, with “lorries stuck for 16 hours and food rotting” and producers and farmers unable to export goods because of the amount of “red tape”.

Asked how much people could expect to save on shopping as a result of the deal the government was hoping to negotiate, the minister was unable to give a figure.

On the issue of fishing, asked if a deal would mean allowing French boats into British waters, the minister said the Brexit deal which reduced EU fishing in UK waters by a quarter over five years comes to an end next year.

He said the objectives now included “an overall deal in the interest of our fishers, easier access to markets to sell our fish and looking after our oceans”.

Turning to borders, the minister was asked if people would be able to move through queues at airports faster.

Again, he could not give a definitive answer, but said it was “certainly something we have been pushing with the EU… we want British people who are going on holiday to be able to go and enjoy their holiday, and not be stuck in queues”.

PM opens door to EU youth mobility scheme

A deal granting the UK access to a major EU defence fund could be on the table, according to reports – and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has appeared to signal a youth mobility deal could be possible, telling The Times that while freedom of movement is a “red line”, youth mobility does not come under this.

The European Commission has proposed opening negotiations with the UK on an agreement to facilitate youth mobility between the EU and the UK. The scheme would allow both UK and EU citizens aged between 18 and 30 years old to stay for up to four years in a country of their choosing.

Earlier this month, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Phillips a youth mobility scheme was not the approach the government wanted to take to bring net migration down.

When this was put to him, Mr Thomas-Symonds insisted any deal on a youth mobility scheme with Europe will have to be “smart” and “controlled” and will be “consistent” with the government’s immigration policy.

Asked what the government had got in return for a youth mobility scheme – now there had been a change in approach – the minister said: “It is about an overall balanced package that works for Britain. The government is 100% behind the objective of getting net migration down.”

Phillips said more than a million young people came to the country between 2004 and 2015. “If there isn’t a cap – that’s what we are talking about,” he said.

The minister insisted such a scheme would be “controlled” – but refused to say whether there would be a cap.

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‘It’s going to be a bad deal’

Shadow cabinet office minister Alex Burghart told Phillips an uncapped youth mobility scheme with the EU would lead to “much higher immigration”, adding: “It sounds very much as though it’s going to be a bad deal.”

Asked if the Conservatives would scrap any EU deal, he said: “It depends what the deal is, Trevor. And we still, even at this late stage, we don’t know.

“The government can’t tell us whether everyone will be able to come. They can’t tell us how old the young person is. They can’t tell us what benefits they would get.

“So I think when people hear about a youth mobility scheme, they think about an 18-year-old coming over working at a bar. But actually we may well be looking at a scheme which allows 30-year-olds to come over and have access to the NHS on day one, to claim benefits on day one, to bring their extended families.”

He added: “So there are obviously very considerable disadvantages to the UK if this deal is done in the wrong way.”

Jose Manuel Barroso, former EU Commission president, told Phillips it “makes sense” for a stronger relationship to exist between the European Union and the UK, adding: “We are stronger together.”

He said he understood fishing and youth mobility are the key sticking points for a UK-EU deal.

“Frankly, what is at stake… is much more important than those specific issues,” he said.

Politics

Easing trade and signing a defence pact would be manifesto promises delivered – and Starmer could use a win

Published

57 mins ago

May 19, 2025

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Easing trade and signing a defence pact would be manifesto promises delivered - and Starmer could use a win

This EU-UK summit has for months been openly billed by Sir Keir Starmer’s Downing Street as a hugely significant moment for this government.

The Labour leader promised in his 2024 election manifesto that the UK would sign a new security pact with the EU to strengthen cooperation and improve the UK’s trading relationship with the continent.

Since winning power in July, he has embarked on a charm offensive across European capitals in a bid to secure that better post-Brexit deal.

Monday is set to be when the PM makes good on those promises at a historic summit at Lancaster House in London.

There, the EU and UK are expected to sign a security and defence partnership, which has taken on a new sense of urgency since the arrival of President Trump in the White House.

It is an agreement that will symbolise the post-Brexit reset, with the PM, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president Antonio Costa are also expected to sign off on a communique pledging deeper economic cooperation.

But, rather like the torturous Brexit negotiations I covered for years in London and Brussels under Conservative prime ministers, Sir Keir’s post-Brexit reset talks are going down to the wire.

As of 10.30pm on Sunday, discussions were set to continue overnight, the two sides snared up over details around fisheries, food trade and youth mobility.

It’s not that both sides don’t want the reset: the war in Ukraine and the spectre of the US becoming an unreliable partner have pushed London and Brussels closer together in their common defence interest.

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Fishing and youth mobility – the two snags

But the pressure for this deal weighs more heavily on our prime minister than his European colleagues. He’s been talking for months about securing a reset and better trading relationship with the EU to bolster the UK economy.

His need to demonstrate wins is why, suggests one continental source, the Europeans are letting talks go to the wire, with London and Brussels in a tangle over fishing rights – key demands of France and the Netherlands – and a youth mobility scheme, which is a particular focus for Berlin.

“The British came with 50 asks, we came with two – on fishing and the youth mobility scheme,” says one European source.

The EU is asking for longer-term access to UK fishing grounds – a 10-year deal – which the British government has rebuffed, insisting it will not go beyond a four-year deal.

In response, Brussels is saying it will not lift regulatory checks on food, agricultural and animal products unless the UK moves on fishing. This has left the two sides at an impasse.

EU sources say Brussels had offered a time-limited deal to lift checks on animal products – replicating London’s offer on fisheries – but the UK is reluctant to do this as it leaves too much uncertainty for farmers and supermarkets.

Scotland election weighing on talks

A deal on food products, known as sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) goods, would be a boost for the economy, with potentially up to 80% of border checks disappearing, given the breadth of products – paint, fashion goods, leather as well as foods – with an animal component.

Any deal would also mean the UK would have to align with rules made in Brussels and make a financial contribution to the EU to fund work on food and animal standards.

Both elements will trigger accusations of Brexit “betrayal”, as the UK signs up as a “rule taker” and finds itself paying back into the EU for better access.

Government figures had been telling me how they were more than prepared to face down the criticisms likely to be thrown at them from the Conservatives.

But sensitivities around fishing, particularly in Scotland, where Labour is facing elections next year, have weighed on talks.

The other area of huge tension is over a youth mobility scheme, which would enable young adults from member states to study and work in the UK and vice versa.

Government sources familiar with the talks acknowledge some sort of scheme will happen, but want details to be vague – I’m told it might be “an agreement about a future agreement”, while the EU sees this a one of its two core demands.

In talks late on Sunday night, the UK government appeared to be softening on re-opening the pre-Brexit Erasmus student exchange scheme as perhaps a way to get around the impasse, according to one EU source.

The UK rejoining this scheme had been rebuffed by Sir Keir last year, but was raised again last night in talks, according to a source.

Common ground on defence and security

Wherever the economic horsetrading lands, the two sides have found common ground in recent months is on defence and security, with the UK working in lockstep with European allies over Ukraine and relationships deepening in recent months as Sir Keir Starmer has worked with President Macron and others to try to smooth tensions between Kyiv and Washington and work on a European peace deal for Ukraine.

If details on trade, youth mobility and fisheries are fudged on Monday, the expectation is that the two sides will sign a security partnership that will reiterate the UK’s commitment to build up the continent’s defence capability and stand united against Russian aggression with its partners.

The deal should also mean British arms companies will be able to access the EU’s €150bn rearmament programme, which has been set up to create a massive surge in defence spending over the next five years as Europe prepares itself to better repel threats.

As I write this, talks are ongoing, but it is clearly in neither side’s interest for Monday to go wrong.

The EU and UK need to maintain a united front and, more importantly for Keir Starmer domestically, the PM needs to show an increasingly sceptical public he can deliver on his promises.

Easing trade barriers with Britain’s biggest trading partner and signing an EU defence pact would be two manifesto promises delivered.

And with his popularity sinking to a record low in recent days, he could really do with a win.

Politics

People do feel like strangers in Britain – but it’s not just because of migration, polling finds

Published

57 mins ago

May 19, 2025

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People do feel like strangers in Britain - but it's not just because of migration, polling finds

Last week, Sir Keir Starmer voiced his worry Britain could become an “island of strangers” if immigration was not tackled.

Some claimed this was a controversial and dangerous stance – drawing parallels with Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech.

But research released today suggests close to half of those in Great Britain feel like “strangers” in their own country.

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The survey, carried out by pollsters at More In Common, asked 13,464 people in Great Britain for their feelings on the matter.

And what is even more surprising is that the survey was carried out over a month before Sir Keir‘s speech.

The research is only being released today, and it is understood that Downing Street had not seen it before the prime minister’s speech.

However it will likely be welcomed as a justification of a position aimed outside of Westminster.

Isolation linked to wealth

The prime minister’s concerns about Great Britain being an “island of strangers” was inextricably linked to rising immigration.

But the research out today shows the isolation felt by many is strongly linked to wealth – with the poorest in the country more likely to feel like strangers.

The cost of living was mentioned as a contributory factor by many of those asked.

And when it comes to ethnic breakdown of those saying they feel like strangers, Asian or Asian British people were more likely than either white or black British people to say they felt separate.

Amy, a teacher from Runcorn, told researchers that when “your money’s all going on your bills and the boring stuff like food and gas and leccy and petrol” there is nothing left “to do for ourselves”.

Who is Starmer targeting?

Those who criticised Sir Keir for his “strangers” speech tended to accuse the prime minister of appealing to supporters of Reform or the Conservatives.

Suspended Labour MP Zarah Sultana went as far as to claim the speech was a “foghorn to the far right”.

The analysis from More in Common found that people who supported Reform and the Conservatives last year are indeed much more likely to feel like strangers in the UK.

While Labour, Lib Dem and Green supporters are all less likely to feel like strangers, around a third of them do still agree with the statement that they “sometimes feel like a stranger in my own country”.

And the polling also found that Reform and Conservative voters are much more likely to think that multiculturalism threatens national identity, while supporters of the other three parties tend to largely believe multiculturalism is a benefit.

Across the board, supporters of all parties were more likely than not to think that everyone needs to do more to encourage integration between people of different ethnic backgrounds – and similarly a majority think it is everyone’s responsibility to do so.

Luke Tryl, the UK director of More in Common, said: “The prime minister’s warning that we risk becoming an ‘island of strangers’ resonates with millions who say they feel disconnected from those around them.

“But it would be a mistake to say that immigration and lack of integration are the sole causes of our fragmenting social fabric.”

John McDonnell, another former Labour MP, now suspended, told Sky News that having politicians “exploit” resentment fuelled by economic circumstance to shift “the blame onto migrants just exacerbates the problem”.

He said the government needs to “tackle the insecurity of people’s lives and you lay the foundations of a cohesive society”.

With Reform now leading in the polls and the collapse of support for Sir Keir since becoming prime minister, it is unsurprising that what he says seems to match up with what turquoise voters feel.

Work from home alone

The post-pandemic shift to working from home and spending more time alone has also been blamed for an increased feeling of isolation.

Ruqayyah, a support worker from Peterborough, said the shift to home offices had “destroyed our young generation”.

But there are many other reasons that people feel separate from the rest of their country.

Young people are less trusting of strangers, and there is also a deep discontent with the political system.

Many think the system is “rigged” in favour of the wealthy – although this belief is less common the higher the level of education someone has completed.

The tension that exploded during last year’s riots are also highlighted, and many people are worried about religious differences – a situation exacerbated by foreign conflicts like in the Middle East and between India and Pakistan.

The research was carried out alongside the campaign group Citizens UK and UCL.

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Matthew Bolton, executive director of Citizens UK, said: “We all saw what can happen last summer when anger and mistrust boil over and threaten the fabric of our society.

“The answers to this don’t lie in Whitehall.

“By listening to people closest to the ground about what causes division and what builds unity in their neighbourhood, we can build a blueprint for cohesion rooted in local leadership and community power.”