Ketanji Brown Jackson says Supreme Court risks being seen as political after voting rights decision

WASHINGTON – Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said Monday that the Supreme Court risks being seen as political in the wake of a major voting rights decision.

She spoke after writing a solo dissent from the court’s decision allowing Louisiana to move quickly to use new maps after the court struck down a majority-Black district and weakened the Voting Rights Act.

“Public confidence is really all the judiciary has,” she said at a talk before the American Law Institute in Washington, D.C.

“Everyone believes the court system is outside the political sphere. I think that means it’s incumbent on us to do things, to act in ways that shore up public confidence,” she said.

Polling has shown public trust in the Supreme Court at historic lows in recent years, and Chief Justice John Roberts has separately bemoaned the perception that the justices are “political actors.”

Jackson has become a frequent dissenter from the decisions of the conservative majority court, including a solo dissent from an order allowing Louisiana to use new maps even though early voting had already begun. She said the court had “spawned chaos” amid a fierce nationwide redistricting battle.

Three of her conservative colleagues on the court forcefully disagreed, calling her comments “baseless” and saying accusations of partisanship aren’t justified. The alternative, they wrote, was to allow an election under a map found to be unconstitutional.