Justice Kagan Says Supreme Court Rulings Have Left Democracy Working Less Well

Justice Elena Kagan said on Tuesday that a string of Supreme Court decisions by its six-member conservative majority has damaged American democracy, arguing that the court has blinded itself to the effects its rulings have on the political system.

Speaking at the Catholic University of America’s law school in Washington, in a question-and-answer session with the law professor Joel Alicea, Kagan said the result was a democracy that does not work as well as it should, NBC News reported. Reuters, in a report republished by The Daily Record, described her as saying the rulings had been destructive to democracy.

Kagan singled out the court’s 2019 decision holding that federal courts cannot rein in extreme partisan gerrymandering. She said the ruling set off a race to the bottom in which both parties draw maps for maximum advantage, depriving citizens of voting equality and pushing candidates toward the extremes. Ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms, several states have redrawn congressional districts in the middle of the decade, beginning with Texas at President Trump’s urging and followed by others, including California.

She also criticized decisions that have weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which she called an evisceration, including a ruling this year after which several Republican-led states eliminated majority-Black districts. And she faulted the court’s repeated striking down of campaign finance limits, most recently in June, saying voters see the flood of money in politics as a nightmare and are right to.

Kagan raised concerns as well about a ruling this year that gave the president greater control over federal agencies that had traditionally been shielded from political interference, warning of the danger of a single president overriding other institutions of government.

At the same time, she pushed back on critics who describe the court as a rubber stamp for Trump. She called the court deeply conservative, but said it had ruled against the president at times, pointing to his unsuccessful attempt to impose sweeping tariffs. SCOTUSblog also highlighted her description of the court as deeply conservative.

Defenders of the majority’s approach argue that judges should stay out of inherently political disputes such as how districts are drawn and how campaigns are financed, leaving those questions to voters, legislatures and Congress, and that the Constitution protects political spending as speech. Kagan’s remarks reflect the opposite view: that the court’s restraint in those areas has had the practical effect of letting the most aggressive partisan tactics go unchecked.

Her comments came a day after the court agreed to hear two significant new cases, including one involving race in school admissions, SCOTUSblog reported, and two weeks before voters go to the polls in districts drawn under the rules she criticized.