Since her appointment by President Joe Biden, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has quickly developed a radical and chilling jurisprudence. Her often sole dissents and accusatory rhetoric have drawn not just the ire of her conservative colleagues but her liberal colleagues. This week, that tension deepened with a stinging rebuke from Justice Samuel Alito (joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch).
At issue is the finalization of the Court’s opinion in Louisiana v. Callais, where the Court ruled 6-3 to ban racial gerrymandering. The Court reaffirmed the use of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to ban intentional racial discrimination in the design of voting districts, but effectively found many districts to be unconstitutional in their current form.
There is no reason why the decision should not be finalized except for a blatantly partisan effort to protect the Democrats from losing seats in the midterm elections. After all, if these districts are unconstitutional, why should states guarantee that voters are given representatives chosen free of racial discriminatory preferences?
That question is even more confusing given the long wait for this opinion. Not only was the case reargued, but there were growing complaints about the delay in releasing the opinion.
Complaints increased after a recent book allegedly reported that Justice Elena Kagan had a vocal confrontation with her colleague, former Justice Stephen Breyer, over his push to release the dissents in Dobbs after the leaking of that opinion. Breyer reportedly agreed with Chief Justice John Roberts that the conservative justices were facing increased death threats due to the delay. Kagan allegedly wanted to further delay the release.
In the Callais decision, the delay was curious since there were six solid votes for the majority and not more of a fracturing of opinions. Indeed, the majority opinion’s references to the Kagan dissent are relatively brief. Nevertheless, the delay has made it very difficult for states to make changes. A few are moving to delay their primaries or draw new maps under extremely tight calendars.
Regardless of the delay, there is no cognizable or principled reason to withhold the opinion to preserve unconstitutional districts. The case has already been on the docket for an unusually long time due to a reargument.
In its one-paragraph order, the court acknowledged that the Supreme Court’s clerk normally waits 32 days after a decision to send a copy of the opinion and the judgment to the lower court. However, it noted that the defenders of the challenged districts had “not expressed any intent to ask this Court to reconsider its judgment.” Conversely, the other parties raised the need for states to address the impact of the ruling with the approaching elections.
Jackson stood alone in demanding that the unconstitutional districts be effectively preserved for the purposes of this election — guaranteeing Democratic seats in the midterm that could be lost in non-racially discriminatory districts. Neither Kagan nor Justice Sonia Sotomayor would join her in the dissent, despite dissenting from the Callais decision itself.
However, it was her language again that drew the attention of her colleagues.
Justice Jackson lambasted the court’s ruling “has spawned chaos in the State of Louisiana.” In an Orwellian twist, Jackson suggested that others were playing politics as she sought to effectively protect unconstitutional Democratic districts. She suggested that the case exposed “a strong political undercurrent.”
In arguably the most insulting line, she lectured her colleagues that this case “unfolds in the midst of an ongoing statewide election, against the backdrop of a pitched redistricting battle among state governments that appear to be acting as proxies for their favored political parties.”
She further said that, rather than avoid “the appearance of partiality,” the Court’s action “is tantamount to an approval of Louisiana’s rush to pause the ongoing election in order to pass a new map.”
Justice Alito had had enough. He noted that her reliance on the 32-day period was a “trivial” objection that put form above substance since no party had asked for reconsideration. It would be waiting for 32 days for no purpose, while the other parties had stated a reasonable and pressing need to finalize the opinion.
He chastised Jackson for a dissent that “lacks restraint.” He denounced the dissent as making “baseless and insulting” claims. He particularly objected to the charge that her colleagues were engaging in an unprincipled use of power” as a groundless and utterly irresponsible charge.”
What is even more chilling than Jackson’s jurisprudence is the fact that she is often cited as the model for Democrats seeking to pack the Court with an instant majority if they retake power. This and other Jackson dissents show why Democrats are so confident that packing the Court will yield lasting control of the government.
Jackson recently told ABC News that “I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people in my opinions how I feel about the issues, and that’s what I try to do.” For some of her colleagues, that cathartic benefit is coming at too high a cost for the Court.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
This column appeared on Fox.com
Obama3.0 is rearing its moron head. DEI did the damage to the future. I thank God, and DJT, that kamala is not the pres, walz is not the veep, and garner is not a SC justice. Amen.
Turley’s characterization of Justice Jackson as ‘radical’ ignores the fact that she was actually the one defending the Court’s own procedural rules and the conservative-led Purcell principle. It is not ‘chilling’ to ask that the Court follow its standard 32-day window for finality; what is truly unusual is the Court bypassing those rules to help a state pause an active election to redraw maps mid-stream.
Far from being partisan, Jackson’s dissent called out the majority for abandoning its own ‘rules of the road’ only when those rules hindered a preferred political outcome. Her warning about ‘spawned chaos’ was a literal observation: ballots had already been cast under the old map, and the Court’s rush to finalize the ruling created a legal vacuum in the middle of a statewide vote. Rather than ‘lacking restraint,’ Jackson was demanding that the Court show the same judicial restraint it requires of lower courts in election cases.
She’s the smarter one for pointing out a glaring violation of the conservatives own doctrine. She’s showing the hypocrisy of the conservatives on the bench showing an increasing political bent of the court favoring republican ideas. She’s not wrong in pointing it out and Alito chaffing at her valid criticism means he’s aware of the hypocritical position and doesn’t care. This is why the view of the court as an objective body above politics continues to remain low. It gives Democrats even more reason to expand the court or as some have already proposed add term limits.
This surprises no one. The fact she is one of the Nine is an insult to EVERY Justice that has ever occupied that bench.
As long as KBJ continues to sully the Court, she will stand as a monument to the unvarnished stupidity of Robinette the Marionette.
Joined at the hip in that stupidity were Republican Senators Collins, Murkowski and Romney, who along with all Democrats ratified and “consented” to the stupidity. The Marionette even burped that the three Republicans participating in the ratification showed “enormous courage.” “Utter stupidity” is the anthesis of “courage.”
Justice Alito was too kind in his response to KBJ’s dissenting diatribe. When at the end of her dissent (or the screed likely ghost-written by one of her radical law clerks…), she claims to “respectfully” dissent …, you know that any “respect” she might have claimed for the majority ruling allowing immediate implementation of the Callais decision was illusory from the get-go.
Stated otherwise, KBJ’s presence on the Court is yet additional proof that the Electorate should never again allow Democrats within 52 factorial cubed parsecs of the White House or the Senate.
Your sentiment cannot be overstated. So bare is the product of Democratic venality, that reasonable voters should be fleeing that institution as if our country’s life depends on its total abandonment. Lest there be any doubt, just imagine the hideous spectacle of KBJ on the Court and Kamalala Harris in the White House.
It’s too bad neither Kagan nor Sotomayor, nor any of the other Justices, joined the concurrence. Doing so would have defended the legitimacy of the Court, which KBJ seeks to undermine at every opportunity.
It’s interesting to see the leftist interpretation of Jackson’s writings – it generally claims that her intellect is so superior that the other Justices cannot grasp what she is saying. I kid you not.
President Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson because he promised to appoint–as he put it–“the first low-IQ black woman to the Supreme Court”. She is also probably the first Supreme Court justice who doesn’t know the parol evidence rule from the statute of frauds. She even argues that President Trump violated the statue of frauds because he doesn’t pursue Biden’s open border policy to allow as many criminal illegal aliens as possible into the United States. And Jackson has also argued that possession is not nine tenths of the law, but rather, is only eight tenths of the law.
It’s time to officially censure U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
I was ready to have her removed after her performance in that odd Broadway play. Not only was it undignified, it showed her obvious lack of impartiality as a justice. She’s worst than most of the dem activist judges in that she holds much more, and I must add – unmerited – power.
Why? Dissents are a normal part of the process. You don’t even know why her dissent matters. She’s correctly pointing out the court is violating its own rules to expedite the Republican’s need to gerrymander before the midterms.
What exactly did she do to merit censure? A dissent can include a chastising comment. All justices do this. Even Alito has done it.
You clearly are not intelligent or educated enough to understand your own flaws.
Jackson is NOT “pointing out the court is violating its own rules.”
She is pointing out what she sees as deviation from the Court’s case precedent.
Do you understand the difference?
Jackson is the one not following the RULES.
Sup. Ct. Rule 44 allows for a Justice to petition the Court for rehearing.
Jackson knows that she could not put together a cogent brief explaining her stance without immediately getting shot down on the merits.
She knows this.
So she simply decided to publish a separate “dissent” to the shortened publication date of Callais.
The Court, in both its original decision AND its response to her, addressed the dissent.
JACKSON IS THE ONE WHO BROKE THE ‘RULES.’
X/George/Svalez is the one who broke the rules in posting a debatable argument.
(Well, I am assuming that you mean a Justice can “shorten or extend the time” for issuing a petition for rehearing, and state the reasons therefore. That Justice can be overruled by others on the Court- which is what happened here. Otherwise, I agree with the comment.)
Clearly YOU’RE not intelligent or educated.
Rule 44 is for Litigants, not Justices: The claim that Jackson “broke the rules” by not using Rule 44 is legally illiterate. Supreme Court Rule 44 governs how parties to a case—the actual litigants—petition for a rehearing [1]. A sitting Justice does not file a “brief” or “petition” to her own colleagues under Rule 44 to express disagreement; she writes a dissent. That is the literal “rule” and standard procedure for a Justice who disagrees with a majority order.
And speaking of violating rules,
Violating Rule 45: Jackson’s point was exactly that the majority was departing from Rule 45.3, which mandates a 32-day waiting period before a judgment is issued [1]. The majority bypassed this internal rule to expedite the implementation. Pointing out that the majority is ignoring its own standard operating procedure is the definition of “pointing out a violation of the rules,” not just a “deviation from precedent.
This isn’t just about technical rules; it’s about the Purcell Principle [2]. This is the doctrine—obsessively cited by the conservative majority—that says courts should not change election rules close to an election [2]. Jackson was holding them to their own standard. The “rules” for everyone else seem to disappear when the majority wants to help a state legislature pause an active election.
This is why you’re an idiot.
X/George: Although your response does not appear to be directed toward me, may I please interject?
Yes. Rule 44 addresses litigants. However, it appears that you, either incomprehensively or intentionally glossed over/omitted the operative clause here, “unless the Court or a Justice shortens or extends the time.” Jackson’s singular demand for “32 days” (not joined by either Kagan or Sotomayor) was accordingly overruled, as I said above in my comment. And the Court politely explained why.
Second, Purcell was never even mentioned by Kagan in her lengthy dissent to the December 2025 Callais ruling on the merits. Nor did the majority (you note, “obsessively cited by the conservative majority”). Perhaps you should take the time to read both Purcell and Abbott to get a better understanding.
Finally, you called the Anonymous ^ above an idiot. I am reading his comment and I do not see that he engaged in calling you any names. Aren’t you the one who chastises others for name-calling and ad hominem responses?
Thanks.
X wrote, “You don’t even know why her dissent matters.”
If that had been written by a fellow commenter that wasn’t such an obvious activist plant for the Democratic Party, I’d take what was written as an error in understanding reality; however, that statement coming from a political hack like you comes across as nonsense from moronic troll that’s trying to troll for effect.
What part of the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Louisiana Democratic Party gerrymandered map was brazenly unconstitutional do you not understand, it must be the exact same part that the moron Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson didn’t understand. Political hacks.
It’s completely obvious after Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s intentional efforts to delay releasing the ruling, her moronic written dissent, her attack on the ruling, and attacking fellow Justices that she is an judicial activist shilling for the Democratic Party and THAT Mr./Ms. X is why she should be censured. She is a Supreme Court Justice that is supposed to be blind to such activism but she is choosing activism over blind justice!
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has shown us multiple times that she should never have been appointed to the Supreme Court, but now we’re stuck with an activist moron like her on the bench and censure is the only recourse to “fix” her kind of stupid.
Witherspoon, to call someone a ‘moron’ while completely missing that Jackson was the only person in the room actually following the Supreme Court’s own rules.
She didn’t delay the case; the majority did by ordering a rare reargument.
Her dissent wasn’t about ‘Democratic gerrymandering,’ it was about Rule 45.3 and the Purcell Principle—rules the conservative majority follows religiously right up until they get in the way of a Republican map.
Alito isn’t ‘fixing stupid’; he’s just mad that Jackson caught him throwing his own rulebook out the window to help a political ally ‘run out the clock’ on an active election.
You’re as moronic as you seem to be. You want to censure her for pointing out an obvious breaking of the rules. Your argument is seriously flawed and too stupid to take at face value. Clearly your emotional reaction got the better of you.
What kind of “official censure” are you talking about? I know Robert’s Rules provides for censure and some local boards occasionally slap that meaningless label on one of their fellows, but what could you possibly mean for a SCOTUS justice?
She’s not just the first black female on the Court; she’s also the first autopen on the Court. Joe Biden and Franklin Pierce are in a horserace for most incompetent President ever. In time, Ketanji will secure Joe’s place at the bottom.
Diogenes — Sorry, but The Donald has already lapped them both.
(What is even more chilling than Jackson’s jurisprudence is the fact that she is often cited as the model for Democrats seeking to pack the Court with an instant majority if they retake power.) Now you understand what this is all about – the left is still attempting to “fundamentally transform” this nation through any and every means that it can use.
KamaLaLa is laughing, with a smirk on her face and a glass of wine clutched in her paw.
That’s because she is, as always, 3 sheets to the wind.
That’s very Obamaesque!
She was judged to be the most qualified candidate of her gender and complexion. Given who made that judgement call, there are no surprises here. She has yet to be diagnosed as negative for stupid.
She is the epitome of a racially jerrymandered election district crossbred with the Biden crime family’s exemplar of a packed court. She is brazenly abusing her authority with the type of shamelessness demonstrated by Hunter Biden when he was an energy consultant to the fascist-controlled Burisma gas company. Looking at the social devolution of Black Democrat governed cities in the US, rife with corruption, a reasonable observer would conclude that Justice Jackson is a political operative installed for the purpose of maintaining and expanding political corruption and the looting of public resources.
Sorry, but that attitude is baked into the cake. If the facts do not support your brain fart, make it up from some oblique point of view.
This is a disgusting comment — Low based and doesn’t belong on this site.
a disgusting remark justifiably fitting to the most disgusting addition to the court. A strict DEI, indoctrinated, activist posing as a justice. We all know what she is, a totally racist/prog driven only by her agenda – never by the constitution.
I think it’s time that responsible parties begin to consider an impeachment of this particular judge.
Well this Justice is what happens when the American People elect a cabbage head to the presidency. There may be a brain in there somewhere but the issue remains in doubt. We already know that the President that appointed her had no brain. Joe Biden is a good argument for the Spartan tradition of leaving suspect children on a mountainside. Reprehensible as the practice was, Joe Biden made us think about bringing it back.
Of course Hunter Biden and Justice Jackson could have sat on the same mountainside.
😂
She’s mediocrity at its mediocre best. The true loss is a prevention of an opportunity to have seated a great mind with good faith. Her placement prevents what is good. GEB might say a bowel obstruction 😂.
Have a lovely day one and all.
She’s a great counter-advertisement for Harvard.
She doesn’t even know if she is a woman or not.
She’s either a DEI moron or a deliberate subversive warror. Either way not good.
Who wants 4 or 6 more KBJs added to the court?
“Her often sole dissents and accusatory rhetoric have…”
======
Not one to take sides or place blame, but with all due respect this is the same rap that Clarence Thomas has had since he joined the court. Thomas has the most single dissent rulings in the history of the US Supreme Court, by far, and it’s a record that is never going to be broken. The allegations of the rulings being “political” is new and very troubling .
No clear accounting of this seems to exist. Got a link to show his massive number of solo opinions is the highest evah?
There is a difference between a lone voice of constitutional support and a lone hyena shouting activist points into the wind. One is a scholar of known value and the other is a DEI plant of little intellectual vigor.
Democrats don’t put these black women in positions of power for their independent intellect.
It’s all about race. . .a common thread in liberal politics from the left. And no, I’m not the far right, but have voted as an independent for over 40 years.
If blacks comprise only 13% of the population, why is their continued support so important to the dems?
The Dems do what makes sense: go after the politically most vocal people and convince them that the Dems are the answer to their grievances. Interestingly, the Rep’s traditionally seem to avocate policy first, which is heavy on the logos and light on the pathos, with the predictable results.
It is just another reason that I have always said that once women were given the vote, they would push agendas that moved their emotional responses to any problem and we can see that there has been a continued creep into progressive, socialist and humanistic methods that have given us welfare, abortion, feminism, toxic masculinity, racial pandering and an ecological agenda driven only my feelings. If we are to save this nation, these emotional movements must be curtailed with unassailable data and logic.
I can’t subscribe to this notion. Examine the emotion on the left. It is visceral. It gets them up in the morning; to take a Machiavellian approach to election integrity; to take up violence with ease. All this makes for good TV and an amplifying feedback loop to attract similar passions. On the right, there are passional advocates but by and large they are driven by ethical/religious or logical beliefs. Those interests are generally not passions and don’t bring large numbers to the polls. Proof? Look at the election counts before Trump or when Trump is not on the ballot.
“If blacks comprise only 13% of the population, why is their continued support so important to the dems?”
Now, factor that by election districts gerrymandered so that the 13% effectively controls far more election outcomes than it should, and you may have your answer.
So sad she was picked for being black and a woman and not for her I Q
It may not be an IQ thing as much as an indoctrination thing. Her race’s subculture is extremely violent and reparation driven. Those passions can trump any extant rational capacity
heck, from her statement, I doubt if she even knows if she is a woman – the black part is displayed by her outrageous neck adornments on her judicial robes. She tends to look like an old national geographic centerfold.
Reminding us all of the “woman”question during confirmation has gotten old. Her response was clumsey but the best she could dedge up in response to a political gotcha question. There are many examples of her inadequacy that has arisen since that are more objective and more threatening.
No, it will stay with her forever, particularly because even before she was nominated Biden said it would be one of two qualifications.
For Democrats the very definition of democracy is Democrats winning elections. As a result everything in the nation must be harnessed to the electoral needs of the Democratic party.
Lord spare us a packing of the court with four new justice Jacksons.
time for the other Justices to openly state the KBJ is Just DUMB!
She is there because she was ILLEGALLY Selected…when Biden ruled out 97% of the rest of the country from being acceptable.
She may not be extraorinarily bright but I don’t think she is stupid. She’s an ideological warrior and has chosen her positions based on her ideological goals. We just get to see the abyss between her ideology and reality or common sense and we call it stupid.
Not a SCOTUS judge whose reasoning inspires.
She has neither the intellect nor the experience necessary for the position she holds.
I think that the most serious problem with KBJ is her choice of ideology over duty to the country.
Her ability and experience have not been tested.
I guess that alone may serve as a definitive test🤣
“She has neither the intellect nor the experience necessary for the position she holds.”
Yes, but in political terms she was going to be the “poster child” of a racial minority, regardless of intellect.
Why is Jackson even speaking on the subject of rigged election maps? She’s not a Cartographer!
What an incredibly stupid comment.
I thought it was a good play on her answer during her confirmation hearing.
OldFish,
I caught that one too!
Remember, this post by “Anonymous” is a way to lambast the opinions of others with whom he disagrees. He only knows how to throw tantrums versus open discussion of the issues and laws, and I can’t find any positive comment from him (more likely than her) on any post.