US Supreme Court's divisions deepened in term capped by Trump immunity
ruling
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[July 03, 2024]
By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court's divisions deepened over
its nine-month term that culminated this week with a ruling powered by
its 6-3 conservative majority granting former President Donald Trump
substantial criminal immunity for actions taken in office.
A term during which the court constrained the U.S. government's ability
to regulate industry - following recent terms when it rolled back
abortion rights, expanded gun rights and rejected race-conscious
collegiate admissions - laid bare ideological fractures that mirror a
profoundly divided nation.
Those rulings and others have moved American law sharply rightward.
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused her conservative colleagues of
embracing a dangerous expansion of presidential powers in ruling that
Trump, now seeking a return to the White House, is immune from
prosecution for some of his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss,
which led to the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attack by his supporters.
Trump is the first former U.S. president to be criminally charged and
the first to be convicted. He is now the Republican challenger to
Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 U.S. election, a rematch
from four years ago.
"The relationship between the president and the people he serves has
shifted irrevocably," Sotomayor wrote in a dissent, joined by fellow
liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. "In every use of
official power, the president is now a king above the law."
Chief Justice John Roberts, part of the conservative majority
strengthened by Trump's three appointees, in his ruling accused the
liberals of "fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals."
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Harvard Law School professor Mark Tushnet said this term intensified the
ideological split on the top U.S. judicial body.
"The division between conservatives and progressives, which existed
before this term, seems to me to have hardened a bit, though it's not
completely ossified," Tushnet said. "The rancor, which again could be
seen before this term, seems to me to have gone up a notch."
PUBLIC OPINION
The court's standing in public opinion polls has cleaved along partisan
lines.
Before the June 2022 decision ending the court's recognition of a
woman's constitutional right to abortion, a majority of Republicans and
Democrats had looked favorably on the court, according to Reuters/Ipsos
polling. Since then, Democrats have soured on it while Republican
approval has increased.
In December 2021, 57% of respondents - including 57% of Democrats and
55% of Republicans - expressed a favorable view of the court. A poll
last month found approval by Democrats down to 22%, with Republican
approval rising to 69%. That put overall approval at 41%.
An ongoing push by congressional Democrats for Supreme Court ethics
reform made little progress this term even as conservative justices
faced fresh scrutiny for actions off the bench. These included
revelations that flags associated with Trump's attempts to overturn the
2020 election flew outside of two of Justice Samuel Alito's homes, and
that Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose luxury vacations he had
accepted from a billionaire benefactor.
Alito has said it was his wife who flew the flags. Thomas has said he
regarded the trips as the kind of personal hospitality regularly
exchanged between friends.
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A view of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, U.S. June 29, 2024.
REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt/File Photo
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'JUDICIAL HUBRIS'
Another ruling decided along ideological lines dealt a major blow
last week to federal regulatory power by overturning a 1984
precedent that had led to a legal doctrine known as "Chevron
deference" that had called on judges to give deference to federal
agencies in interpreting laws they administer.
Kagan said the court had elevated its power over the U.S.
government's two other branches - executive and legislative.
"A rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule of judicial
hubris," Kagan wrote. "In recent years, this court has too often
taken for itself decision-making authority Congress assigned to
agencies."
The court's liberals have expressed their discontent beyond just
their written dissents.
"There are days that I've come to my office after an announcement of
a case and closed my door and cried," Sotomayor said during remarks
in May at Harvard University. "And there are likely to be more."
The sharp exchanges within the court have not all come along the
conservative-liberal divide.
The court ruled 6-3 last month to permit - for now - abortions to be
performed in Idaho when pregnant women are facing medical
emergencies. But the justices dispensed with the contentious issue
without actually deciding the underlying legal dispute.
Alito, Thomas and fellow conservative Neil Gorsuch were the
dissenters.
"Apparently, the court has simply lost the will to decide the easy
but emotional and highly politicized question that the case
presents. That is regrettable," Alito said.
Jennifer Mascott, a Catholic University law professor, said
acrimonious dissents have a long history at the Supreme Court.
Mascott pointed to instances this term that "go against the
narrative" of the court being ideologically riven or reflexively
opposed to the regulatory "administrative state."
Mascott cited the court's 7-2 decision, authored by Thomas, that
upheld the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding mechanism,
handing a victory to Biden's administration and a setback to the
agency's conservative critics.
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But other legal experts said this term will be remembered for
rulings that undermined federal regulatory power and vastly
increased presidential powers, with scant support from the court's
liberals.
"In other circumstances, Chief Justice Roberts's failure to attract
even one progressive to his side in the presidential immunity case
would be regarded as a serious failure of leadership," Tushnet said.
"His tone in responding to the dissents, which is more heightened
than seems to me necessary, might flow in part from that
frustration."
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Additional reporting by Allenda Miglietta;
Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham)
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