Legacy media outlets have pulled out their pitchforks as Supreme Court justices return for a new term, and are already painting a grim picture of the potential impact the court’s rulings will have on the country.
“The Supreme Court, dogged by legitimacy questions, is poised to resume,” read a headline in The Washington Post on Thursday.
“The court’s 6-3 conservative majority quickly moved its jurisprudence sharply to the right, and there is no reason to believe that the direction or pace can change. This The court’s version appears committed to allowing more restrictions on abortion, fewer on guns, changing a previously strict line separating church and state, and controlling government agencies. If it’s the dream of the conservative legal establishment, it’s come at a cost,” Washington Post Supreme Court reporter Robert Barnes worried, before citing polls showing the court’s record approval rating.
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United States Supreme Court.
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
The next day, Washington Post deputy editorial page editor Ruth Marcus denounced the “cataclysmic Supreme Court term” that led to the overturning of Roe v. pull back on the throttle.”
“As the October 2022 term begins, I look in vain for signs of this neglect abating. Seeing few, I worry, the court and the country whose future it will shape,” he said Marcus to readers on Friday.
On Saturday, The New York Times editorial board suggested that the Supreme Court “cannot play its critical role in American government” because the American people no longer trust it as an institution.
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The Times wrote that the Supreme Court has “transformed into a judicial arm of the Republican Party,” telling readers, “In four years, the court had a right-wing supermajority of 6 to 3, defeating the efforts of Republican appointees to discard. the traditions and processes that have allowed the court to appear fair and nonpartisan. As a result, the court’s legitimacy has been squandered in the service of partisan victories.”
“There is no clear solution to this crisis,” complained the Times editorial board. “Lawyers have put forward many proposals for structural reform – expanding the number of judges, imposing term limits or removing the court’s jurisdiction over certain types of cases – but none is a perfect remedy for the politicization of the court.”
Supreme Court Associate Justices (LR) Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch, Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Associate Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Samuel A. Alito, Jr. , Elena Kagan and Brett M. Kavanaugh pose in the justices’ conference room before the formal investiture ceremony of Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on September 30, 2022 in Washington, DC.
(U.S. Supreme Court Collection via Getty Images)
ABC News correspondent Terry Moran cited “legal scholars who say” the Supreme Court may “push the law and the country to the right” in the new term during Monday’s broadcast of “World News tonight”.
MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade sounded the alarm about the current 6-3 conservative majority’s willingness to overturn precedents, saying the outcomes of future cases are “troubling” as the Supreme Court has “shown unwillingness to adhere to precedents”.
“Deadline: The White House” host Nicolle Wallace said Monday that the Supreme Court is at a “crisis point” based on recent polls. His guest, civil rights advocate and former MSNBC analyst Maya Wiley, said the court was “handled by Donald Trump.”
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CNN host Fareed Zakaria similarly warned that the Supreme Court’s legitimacy is “in jeopardy.”
“The Supreme Court cannot enforce any of its own judgments. It depends on the other powers and the public to accept them. That is why the legitimacy of the Court is so important. And that is why actions that make the “Judiciary seems more partisan, that’s why the Supreme Court can’t enforce any sentence. More radical, more out of tune with the country, they are so dangerous,” Zakaria wrote on Saturday.
Zakaria insisted that “the most egregious aspect of the American judicial system” is the concept of “permanence,” writing: “Judges can wield their power longer than most dictators; some stay on the court for decades. Clarence Thomas, for example, has been on the Supreme Court for almost 31 years and is now 74 years old.”
President Biden listens as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks during an event on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, April 8, 2022, celebrating Jackson’s confirmation as the first black woman to reach the Supreme Court.
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
USA Today contributor Richard Wolf called it “curious” that conservative justices “almost always find a legal basis to support decisions that align with conservative ideology.”
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Wolf argued that the court “should exercise some humility” in refusing to hear cases “that advance their ideology”
“Just a little judicial humility would go a long way to restoring faith in the nation’s high court, before it loses its legitimacy,” Wolf wrote Monday.
