Are Supreme Court Justices Partisan?

 

Certainly, that is the general perception.  And it often true.  It is no coincidence that Court members appointed will be members of the President’s party.  And, unsurprisingly, they will tend to rule in favor of positions favored by their party’s members.  They are partisans.

To be sure, each member of the Court (as with any judge at any level) has taken an oath to be fair and impartial.  But I suggest that predictable alignments do not mean that a judge’s pledge can be dismissed as empty words.

Sure, some oath takers view the recitation as imposing no responsibility upon them.  Yet it would be rank cynicism – and simply untrue – to treat the promise as meaningless.

The history of the Supreme Court is replete with examples of justices who voted contrary to expectations.  Two examples:

                   **  Chief Justice John Roberts surprised conservatives and liberals alike when he voted to uphold Obamacare.

                   **  Liberal Justice Breyer shocked both parties in 2001 when he voted to in favor of George Bush’s election as president.

There are many others.  Of course, these can also be considered as exception to the rule.  Judges will contend that they are not influenced by their biases and prejudices – when common sense tells us otherwise.  We all prefer believe about ourselves what we want to believe.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t try to adhere to standards we set for ourselves.  That attitude can be reinforced if others take your commitment to fairness and impartiality as one made in good faith.

Thus, it was a mistake for 47 Republican members of the Senate to vote against the candidacy of Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court.  Her ascendancy was assured by the unanimity of the Democrats so the negative votes accomplished nothing but to highlight the refusal of the opposition to credit the nominee with “good faith”.

Ironically, the support of her three GOP backers (Senators Collins, Murkowski and Romney) may in the future cause Justice Jackson to take more seriously her oath because they voted for her in apparent reliance on her own sincerity,