Justice Elena Kagan said on Tuesday that recent Supreme Court rulings have deepened America’s political divides. She criticized the conservative majority for decisions on voting rights and campaign finance. Kagan noted, "the court has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works."
The justice said during a discussion that recent Supreme Court decisions on voting rights, gerrymandering and campaign finance have deepened America's divides.
Justice Elena Kagan on Tuesday criticized the Supreme Court's conservative majority for a series of election-related decisions in recent years that she said have led to more polarization and a dysfunctional democracy.
Justice Kagan, one of the court's three liberals, delivered the sharp critique two weeks before hotly contested midterm elections and in front of an ideologically mixed crowd of law students and professors. In a wide-ranging discussion, she pointed to the court's rulings that have loosened restrictions on campaign funding, cleared the way for partisan voting maps and undermined landmark voting rights protections.
"In all these areas, the court has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works" and has created "a democracy that does not work as well as it should."
The justice's remarks came during a conversation at Catholic University's law school with Prof. J. Joel Alicea, who was a law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., a conservative.
While Justice Kagan has issued strongly worded dissents in individual election-related cases, her remarks on Tuesday amounted to a global critique of how a series of choices by the court's majority have affected democracy in the United States. Taken together, she said, the rulings have deepened political divisions and made the country's electoral system work less well.
Justice Kagan wrote the dissent, for instance, when the court in 2019 closed the door on federal litigation challenging voting maps aimed at achieving political ends. As a result, she said, "both political parties have been engaged in a race to the bottom" to draw voting maps that advantage either Democrats or Republicans in a way that "is very destructive of our democracy."
Similarly, she said the court's decisions to ease campaign finance rules have left loopholes that have allowed a massive infusion of political contributions into elections.
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