“Why is the Supreme Court no longer functional as an impartial authority? I was taught in Civics that the members were honorable! It has become a political circus.” — Ruth

Hi Ruth,

I view this through a slightly different lens, although I reach a similar conclusion about the status quo.

While there have been moments where the court has spoken strongly with one voice — Brown v. Board of Education is an oft-cited example — tensions have always existed within the court. That’s unsurprising in any powerful group, certainly in one as powerful as the Supreme Court.

But I don’t think there was a previous magical time when the court was impartial and then it just stopped being that way.

Yet, there used to be more of an equilibrium on the court maintained by members who’ve been described as “swing justices.” Take a relatively recent example of Justice Anthony Kennedy (Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s predecessor), who went both ways over the years in cases that could be described as more conservative-friendly outcomes in some appeals and more liberal-friendly outcomes in others.

Whether justices used to be more honorable, I’m not sure. But we do know that Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett, who replaced Clinton appointee Ruth Bader Ginsburg, bolstered a generational shift that gave Republicans a supermajority on the court. That Barrett could be described today as a swing justice — or perhaps more accurately, a median justice — in some cases shows how far to the right the court has gone, lending itself to the circus-like atmosphere you describe.

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