Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Warns Her Conservative Colleagues To Be ‘Really, Really Careful’ Ahead of 2026 Elections

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s renewed criticism of how the Supreme Court has handled its Voting Rights Act jurisprudence suggest that the high court’s recent rifts could get livelier.Speaking on Monday at Washington at an event hosted by the American Law Institute, Justice Jackson declared that “Courts are apolitical, not supposed to be issuing rulings that are in the political realm. We have to be scrupulous about sticking to the principles and the rules that we apply in every case and not look as though we’re doing something different in this kind of context.”Those remarks appear to be a reference to how the Nine ruled last month in Louisiana v. Callais. By a six to three margin the justices concluded that a redistricting map approved in the Pelican State was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the Fifteenth Amendment. Callais also held that for a map to run afoul of the Voting Rights Act, plaintiffs must show that a “state intentionally redistricted to diminish the opportunity for minority voters.”While Callais was decided along the court’s ideological divide, a follow up order that the delivery of its ruling be expedited — there is a default waiting period of 32 days — was endorsed by eight of the justices, with only Justice Jackson in dissent. In her four page objection she declared that the accelerated schedule “has spawned chaos in the State of Louisiana” and that the court’s expedited procedure indicated a “strong political undercurrent.”Justice Jackson adds that to “avoid the appearance of partiality we could … opt to stay on the sidelines and take no position by applying our default procedures.” 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.” She accused her colleagues of putting “power” over “principles.”Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, called that a “groundless and utterly irresponsible charge” and noted that Justice Jackson’s dissent lacked “restraint” and would result in elections “held under a map that has been held to be unconstitutional.” Justice Alito asks “What principle has the Court violated?”On Monday, Justice Jackson showed little inclination to leave the dispute in the past. When asked by a federal district court judge, Richard Gergel, about Callais, she answered “I think we have to be very constrained. My view was it would be a more neutral way to handle the matter to just stick with the rule that we always apply in situations like this.” She also said that her colleagues ought to be “really, really careful” to avoid politics in an election year.Justice Alito in the Callais docket, though, called Justice Jackson’s imputation that the court was playing politics alternatively “insulting,” “trivial,” and “baseless.” Justice Jackson told Judge Gergel that the high court’s increasing reliance on the “shadow docket” — deciding cases on an expedited basis without full argument or opinions — is not doing the “court, the lower courts, or our country a service.”The court’s increasing reliance on the “shadow docket,” Justice Jackson reckons, has the effect of “setting up this other lane of adjudication.” That echoes criticism that she levied at Yale last month in respect of the court’s emerging modus operandi. Justice Jackson said that when she clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer some two decades ago the justices “humbly waited. Things are different now.” Justice Jackson declared that the court too rarely realizes that its “scratch paper musings” can cause “real-world harms.”A similar sentiment was expressed last month by the court’s senior liberal justice, Sonia Sotomayor. She ventured that his views in an immigration case were attributable to his biography as “a man whose parents were professionals and probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.” Justice Sotomayor soon issued an apology for making remarks that “were inappropriate. I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague.”Earlier this month Justice Breyer, now 87 and retired from the court, appeared to split with his protege’s criticism of the shadow docket. At Harvard earlier this month he reasoned that “Every court has what you’re saying is a shadow docket, which we call an emergency docket.” He denounced the notion that “there’s some kind of plot involved within the Court to get this or that decided.” Another defender of the shadow docket has been none other than Justice Samuel Alito, who some four years ago told Notre Dame Law School that the “catchy and sinister term ‘shadow docket’ has been used to portray the court as having been captured by a dangerous cabal that resorts to sneaky and improper methods to get its ways.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Warns Her Conservative Colleagues To Be ‘Really, Really Careful’ Ahead of 2026 Elections

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