An Emboldened Justice Jackson Warns About State of Democracy (1)

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the state of US democracy keeps her up at night in remarks that built on her dissents lamenting Trump administration attempts to expand presidential authority and the decisions by fellow colleagues so far backing that effort.

“I’m really interested in getting people to focus and to invest and to pay attention to what is happening in our country and in our government,” she told a group of lawyers and judges on Thursday in Indianapolis. The remarks received a standing ovation.

Jackson has been a vocal critic of the administration since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, She’s penned strong dissents in cases related to his executive actions and other steps that have raised concerns about a willingness to adhere to the rule of law.

Her most recent forceful dissent came on Tuesday in a ruling that allows Trump to move forward with his sweeping plans to overhaul the federal government, including mass firings of workers.

This “was the wrong decision at the wrong moment,” she wrote.

‘Ordinary Citizens’

The court’s most junior justice and one of three in the liberal bloc also accused her conservative colleagues this term of running the risk of eroding public trust in the impartiality of judicial decisionmaking.

“This case gives fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this Court than ordinary citizens,” Jackson said after the court revived a lawsuit fuel producers brought challenging an Environmental Protection Agency decision in Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA.

Jackson also joined Justice Sonia Sotomayor in dissenting from a July 3 order to allow the administration to send eight migrants to South Sudan in a move that clarified the court’s prior decision to let the government deport migrants to countries they have no ties to.

The duo railed against their colleagues for what they said was continually letting the administration circumvent the normal appeals process and defy court rulings.

Sotomayor, too, has spoken about how some the of conservative-led majority court’s rulings impact her personally. She revealed during a speech at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute in May 2024 that some there are court outcomes that make her feel desperation and deeply sad.

“There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,” the Obama nominee said. “There have been those days and there are likely to be more.”

Conservative Pushback

Jackson’s outspokenness also has met resistance from conservative colleagues.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett sparred with her by name in the majority ruling on June 27 that limited the power of lower court judges to issue nationwide injunctions that have halted presidential policies.

The Turmp nominee called the position in Jackson’s dissent in Trump v. CASA “difficult to pin down” and accused her of decrying “an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”

When asked if her feelings are hurt by what the other justices write in response to her decisions, she answered “no.”

“I have a very thick skin,” the Joe Biden appointee said at the Indianapolis Bar Association event.

“What I do is try to respond as effectively as I can with my writings,” she said. “I’m not afraid to use my voice,” she said.