The American public no longer believes the Supreme Court is impartial

Published

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.”

Environment

HOLMS develops self-powered attachments for electric equipment fleets

Published

2 hours ago

June 20, 2025

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HOLMS develops self-powered attachments for electric equipment fleets

HOLMS Attachments has made it easier for heavy equipment fleets to electrify with a new sweeper attachment that’s equipped with its own power source, freeing it from the need for a mechanical or battery (e) PTO.

Commercial trucks do more than just move people and things from place to place – special implements like street sweepers, cherry pickers, and tow beds mean they do real work, as well. But the attachments, implements, and even utility bodies being upfitted onto these trucks were largely developed for diesel platforms. They typically get juice from hydraulics or other power take-off (PTO) systems that typically take the form of a splined drive shaft powered directly by the ICE.

BEVs work differently, and have to draw on their battery power to operate these tools. That takes away which takes away from both the range and performance of the EVs in question. Adding to the complexity, some of these attachments are still mechanically driven, requiring an electrically-driven spline shaft, or “ePTO” to operate.

The new eSL Electric Sweeper attachment from HOLMS aims to solve for all that new complexity that’s emerging as electric equipment becomes more commonplace.

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“Electric equipment in general has taken a lot of different directions,” said Dan Snedecor, President and General Manager of HOLMS Attachments. “We realized, let’s not use the power from the machine, because keeping up with that will be even harder than keeping up with the different style hooks and hydraulic systems.”

Developed for the electric equipment needs of the near future, HOLMS’ eSL optimizes the uptime of your electric vehicle or equipment asset so you can complete more tasks between charging sessions.

“Our theory is this will be kind of like an electric drill that we all have at home, where you leave it plugged in until you need it. You go out, you use it, and then you put it back on the charger when you’re done,” Snedecor told Equipment Journal. “The real benefit of that will be the end users don’t need machines that have extra hydraulic functions necessarily.”

The prototype sweeper is controlled from the cab of the wheel loader via Bluetooth and is equipped with a 10 kWh, 48V li-ion battery pack that’s good for three-and-a-half hours of runtime on a single charge. HOLMS says the sweeper’s battery can be recharged in about 90 minutes.

Electrek’s Take

Bobcat was arguably the first big equipment company to start rethinking the way implements would work on electric machinery that didn’t have a reciprocating engine at its core, but the replacement of hydraulics and PTOs with servos and gears seems to be well under way.

We’re here for it.

SOURCE | IMAGES: Equipment Journal, HOLMS.

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Politics

Whitehall officials tried to convince Lord Gove to cover up grooming scandal, he tells Sky News

Published

5 hours ago

June 20, 2025

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Whitehall officials tried to convince Lord Gove to cover up grooming scandal, he tells Sky News

Whitehall officials tried to convince Lord Michael Gove to go to court to cover up details of a report into the grooming scandal in 2011, he has said, confirming Sky News reporting earlier this week.

Speaking to Sky’s Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge, the former senior cabinet minister said it is “undoubtedly the case that more should have been done” to prevent the abuse of young girls in Britain, admitting that it weighs on him.

The allegations of an attempted cover-up were first made to Sky News by former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings in an interview with Sky News, and the claims were substantiated by other sources as well. Mr Cummings was working for Lord Gove, who was then education secretary.

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Lord Gove explained that in 2011, he learned that the late Times journalist Andrew Norfolk, who he described as “a heroic reporter who did more than anyone to initially uncover this scandal”, was seeking to publish details of a report from Rotherham Council about the abuse and grooming of young girls.

He said: “Rotherham Council wanted to stop that happening. They wanted to go to court to prevent him publishing some details, and we in the Department for Education were asked by the council, ‘would we join in, would we be a party to that court action to stop it?’

“And I had to look at the case, advised by Dominic [Cummings] and by others, and there were some within the department, some officials who said, ‘be cautious, don’t allow this to be published, there may be risks for relatives of the victims concerned.”

Rotherham Council also argued that publication may pose “risks” to the process of “improving in the way in which it handles” grooming cases, he continued.

The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.

But Lord Gove said: “My view at the time, advised by Dominic and by others within the department, was that it was definitely better for it to be published.”

“So we said to Rotherham, we will join the case, but we’re joining it on the side of the Times and Andrew Norfolk because we believe in transparency.”

‘Tough questions’ for Whitehall

Lord Gove went on to say that a national inquiry could see some “tough questions” asked of the Home Office about its culture and its interactions with the police.

But those questions will also be posed to two departments he led – the Department for Local Government and the Department of Education, and he said: “I think it’s right that there should be, because the nature and scale of what the victims have endured means that there’s an obligation on all of us who’ve been in any form of elected office to be honest and unsparing in looking at what went on.”

He said he “certainly didn’t have the knowledge at my command that we now do about the widespread nature of this activity”.

‘Not nearly enough’ progress made

Sophy Ridge put to Lord Gove that despite commissioning a report on what was happening to girls in care, and not seeking to block the publication of Andrew Norfolk’s reporting, he still failed to make change.

He replied: “Yes, so it is undoubtedly the case that more should have been done.”

Read more on grooming gangs:
What we do and don’t know from the data
A timeline of the scandal

He admitted that it “absolutely” weighs on him, and that “not nearly enough” progress was made on the protection of vulnerable girls.

“With the benefit of hindsight, I do wish that I had been more vehement in trying to persuade people to take appropriate action,” he said.

Local government ‘sought to deny scale’ of scandal

The now Spectator editor went on to say that there was “pushback, particularly but not exclusively, from those in local government” to subsequent questions about cultural background, and he said “local councillors and others sought to deny the scale of what was happening and particularly, sought to deny questioning about the identity and the background of the perpetrators”.

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He continued: “I think the right thing to do is for everyone to acknowledge that sometimes there were people who were acting from noble motives, who did not want to increase ethnic and racial anxieties, who did not to fan far-right flames, and thought that it was better to step away from the really grim reality of what was going on.

“I can understand that. But ultimately, that didn’t serve anyone. It did not serve the victims.”

The Department for Education and Rotherham Council did not respond when approached for comment earlier this week on the claims first made by Dominic Cummings, revealed by Sky News.

Politics

MP who introduced assisted dying bill ‘confident’ it will be voted through

Published

5 hours ago

June 20, 2025

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MP who introduced assisted dying bill 'confident' it will be voted through

The politician who introduced the assisted dying bill has said she is “confident” MPs will push it through to the next stage on Friday.

Speaking at a news conference ahead of a Commons vote, Kim Leadbeater said: “I do feel confident we can get through tomorrow successfully.”

If new amendments are voted through on Friday, the bill to give some terminally ill adults the right to end their lives will get closer to becoming law as it will go through to the next stage in the House of Lords.

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Ms Leadbeater, who introduced the bill in October last year, said if MPs do not vote it through on Friday, “it could be another decade before this issue is brought back to parliament”.

But she said there was a “good majority” who voted for the bill at the last major vote, the second reading in November, when MPs voted it through by 330 to 275.

“There might be some small movement in the middle, some people might change their mind or will change their mind the other way,” she said.

“But fundamentally, I do not anticipate that that majority would be heavily eroded.”

A new YouGov poll found 72% of Britons supported the bill as it stands, including 59% of those who say they support assisted dying in principle but oppose it in practice, and 67% were opposed to the principle of euthanasia but are willing to back it in practice.

Criticism by doctors

The Labour MP was joined by bereaved and terminally ill people at Thursday’s news conference as she made her case for a change in the law.

The proposed legislation would allow terminally ill adults, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist.

Recently, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Pathologists and the Royal College of Physicians have raised concerns about the bill.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists said the bill, in its current form, did “not meet the needs of patients”.

It has also expressed concern over the shortage of qualified psychiatrists to take part in assisted dying panels.

But Ms Leadbeater said doctors and psychiatrists have their individual views on assisted dying and royal colleges have, over the years, been neutral because of that.

“My door is open, so if they have got concerns, they can come and speak to me about those concerns,” she said.

“But what I would say is they were very keen that there was psychiatric involvement in the process, and that’s why I included it. And I do think that’s important.”

It appears the country is ready for historic change

On the eve of one of the most important votes this current cohort of MPs will likely ever cast, it was a bold, daring claim to make.

Asked by a reporter at a news conference convened in a hot, crowded room deep inside the parliamentary estate if tomorrow’s assisted dying vote was likely to pass, Kim Leadbeater replied, confidently, yes, her controversial bill would be carried.

It would take a sizeable shift to swing it the other way, and opponents of the bill have been trying very hard to convince wavering MPs to do just that.

This week alone, there have been significant interventions from the Royal Colleges of Psychiatrists and Physicians – two professions that would be at the heart of delivering this end of life care and key in making the life or death decisions.

The setting might have been political, but the message was much less so.

Ms Leadbeater was flanked by supporters with the most compelling, heart-wrenching testimonies.

Each told their own powerful story: of lonely, painful deaths, carefully planned journeys to Switzerland’s Dignitas clinic kept secret from loved ones, and the life limiting deterioration in health and dreading what new misery the next few weeks or months would bring.

It was a powerful reminder to MPs that away from the parliamentary process and bill scrutiny, ultimately, this is what the legislation is all about.

There was a (questionable) assurance from Lord Falconer that the House of Lords would respect the will of the people and the bill will pass through the upper chamber without difficulty.

The timetable is tight, but it appears the country is ready for change – a historic one.

On Friday, MPs will vote on a number of amendments proposed by Ms Leadbeater after months of discussions with the assisted dying committee, made up of MPs both for and against the bill.

At the start of the session they will vote on a person not being eligible for assisted dying if their wish to end their life was substantially motivated by factors such as not wanting to be a burden, a mental disorder, a disability, financial considerations, a lack of access to care, or suicidal ideation.